Agent Tolvar
by ivory-sword
Summary: This story follows events that take place between my stories: A Game of Enemies and A Game of Winter. Steve and Aspen follow Strucker's trail and find themselves in a very unexpected place after finding one of his mysterious devices. This story also collects shorts told from different perspectives.
1. Moving In

**Author's Note: **Welcome to Agent Tolvar! This set of shorts takes place between my stories _A Game of Enemies_ and _A Game of Winter_. I will be working with a plot that will weave throughout this story but also will be adding in shorts such as when Steve and Aspen first meet from his point of view and backstories from Aspen's life. It'll be a slower project that I fill in over time. If you haven't yet read my other Avengers stories, please check out _A Game of Trust_, the first in my series. :)

Please enjoy!

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><p><strong>Moving In<strong>

**July 20, 2012**

There was nothing like moving to make you realize just how little you had Aspen realized as she stood studying the sparse apartment. She'd nearly emptied all the boxes they'd packed (five to be exact) and the furniture had arrived the day before. Most of the boxes had been filled with Steve's ever-expanding collection of books which now took up several shelves around the apartment. There were piles on the floor too that hadn't yet found a home. It was a new start, and she felt it rushing through her lungs. This was what she had needed. New York had begun to feel stifling and it held too many memories, some good but some bad. They'd be reporting to the Triskellion Headquarters which was basically SHIELD's main headquarters. She'd seen the building, and it was incredible. She'd been given Level 6 clearance for SHIELD which was a big jump for her. She felt the confidence that came with it too. The one thing she missed was Clint. He hadn't been reassigned to DC, and she wouldn't be working many missions with him if any. He'd assured her that it was time for her to leave the nest.

Arms slid around Aspen's waist, holding her gently. She set her head back against Steve's muscular chest, looking up at him with a smile. He smiled back down at her, blue eyes bright. He was eager for a new start too. He'd even surprised her by getting his hair cut to look more modern. Secretly she missed the old-fashioned style, but she had to admit that he looked good this way too.

"What do you think?" he asked her. "Is it home yet?"

She twisted around in his arms so that she was facing him. "I'm not sure how much time we'll get to spend here, but as long as you're here, it feels like home." She linked her hands around the back of his neck. His hands rested gently on her waist.

"What do you say we go explore a little? We've been unpacking all morning," Steve suggested.

"Hmm, I'm kind of enjoying the view right now."

He gave her a smile, half bashful, half gratified. She knew the effect she was having on him right now, and it pleased her. She leaned up and kissed him lightly, waiting for him to make the next move. In the last few months, they'd grown much more comfortable with each other. Aspen wasn't so worried about making him uncomfortable anymore, and Steve seemed less shy about showing affection for her. In response to her kiss, Steve kissed her back, pressing her closer to him. Aspen completely forgot about the new apartment and Washington DC for a few minutes until Steve gently pulled away.

"They have an exhibit for the Howling Commandos here in the Smithsonian," he said, eyes bright. "I'd like to see it."

"Wait, you interrupted _that_ to tell me about a museum?" He lifted an eyebrow. "I'm joking, I'd love to see it too." She slipped her hand in his, and they went downstairs to the garage where they parked Aspen's car and Steve's motorcycle. They opted for the motorcycle. The wind tore at Aspen's hair, but she didn't mind. She just felt free, arms wrapped tightly around Steve's waist, speeding by traffic. She thought at first she might feel stifled by all the people in DC, but as an agent of SHIELD she felt like she was in her own little society, a protector of the city even though nobody knew it. With Steve she felt like it didn't matter the people around her or the bustle of the city. As long as he was in her life and she in his, it was like being in their own world where that was all that mattered.

The Smithsonian had its own Captain America exhibit which Aspen found both incredible and unbelievable. To her Steve was Steve. It was easy to forget that, to the rest of the world, he was a hero, a legend. Of course he was a hero to her too, but he was so much more than the stars and stripes and shield.

Steve had donned the Brooklyn cap Aspen had bought him, not wanting to be recognized. Hand-in-hand they walked past the banners with his face – she could tell he was a bit uncomfortable with this – and into the exhibit. The first thing she noticed were the mannequins dressed like Steve and the rest of the Howling Commandos with their enlarged pictures behind. Her eyes went straight to Bucky, and Steve's hand tensed in hers. Aspen had only seen a few pictures of Bucky and now she took the chance to really see what he looked like. He had dark hair, a little longer than Steve's had been, styled neatly but with a little bit of a roughish look to it. His face was stern in a way that told her war had changed him, but the blue in his eyes leant a softness to him. She wished she could have known him. He was a big part of Steve that she would never be able to experience, and she was sad for that. She knew how much Bucky's friendship meant to him even still after Bucky had died and Steve had found himself in the 21st century.

An audio recording described the Howling Commandos' quest against Hydra and Steve's transformation from the small boy from Brooklyn to the hero who would take the Valkyrie into the Arctic waters to save the world. Aspen had been to the Captain America exhibit in the museum Clint had taken her to, but this one was filled with interesting pictures and recordings. It was like taking a step back in time, and she was lucky enough to have Captain America himself at her side.

"Is it hard?" she asked when they stopped at the exhibit made especially for Bucky. "Looking at your past like this?"

"Like it's history? Yeah it is," he admitted. "But I don't want to ever forget."

"Of course not, and you won't. They'd be so glad that you made it out safe and alive, you know."

"Yeah, I know. I just wish they were here to tell me themselves."

They spent another quarter hour wandering around the museum until Steve nodded toward the door. "Let's go get something to eat," he said.

They ended up in a little Italian Bistro across from the Lincoln Memorial, enjoying the summer sun. Aspen slid her sunglasses on her face and took a sip of her iced tea, looking around at the scenery. The buzzing of her phone interrupted her observations, and she looked down at the screen irritably. "It's Fury," she said to Steve, sliding her finger to answer. Steve gave her a sympathetic smile.

"Can't we have one day to sightsee?" Aspen asked without preamble.

"Relaxation's over. We need you and Rogers to come in."

"Right now?"

"Preferably ten minutes ago but right now will do. It concerns Wagner."

Aspen's interest was piqued at that. "We'll be right there," she told him before hanging up and turning to Steve. "They've got something on Wagner," she said.

"They tracked him?" he asked, putting some money on the table for their drinks.

"He didn't say." SHIELD had been keeping tabs on Wagner ever since his departure from headquarters, but so far Aspen was only aware that he'd been staying in a rundown hotel in New Jersey with no apparent outside contact. Now as Steve drove them to SHIELD headquarters, Aspen wondered if they were about to be sent on their first mission since arriving in DC. They'd hardly settled in, but she supposed that was irrelevant to Fury.

The Triskellion was on its own patch of land across a long causeway, standing as three tall sentinels over the water. Their ID cards gave them access, and they made their way to the elevator. Fury's office had floor to ceiling windows that gave them a view of the city like no other. Aspen took a moment to enjoy the view before turning her attention to Fury.

"Thank you for coming," he said. "Sorry to pull you away from your sightseeing." He gave Aspen a look that told him that whatever he had to tell them was much more important than seeing the city, but she appreciated his words nonetheless. "As you know we've been tracking Fabian Wagner since his departure from New York headquarters during Zemo's attack." He motioned for them to sit. "After he left Jersey he took a plane to Munich. We were on the verge of sending agents in to investigate when his tracking signal disappeared. There are three things that could have happened. One, he found the tracking device and removed it – unlikely, two, he went somewhere the signal couldn't be tracked – also unlikely, and three-"

"He's dead." Aspen said the words aloud though she hadn't meant to.

"And his body disposed of in a way that destroyed the tracking device," Fury finished.

"Whoever he was reporting to wouldn't be pleased that Zemo failed and that Wagner returned without him," Steve put in. "Have you looked into Munich?"

"That's why you two are here. I'm sending you in to find out what you can. See where the signal was coming from, investigate, and report back. I don't want to think this is a dead end, but it's looking that way. You'll be leaving in an hour. Pack for a few days, casual but make sure you're ready for danger. The place you're going to is a privately owned factory that's been out of use for years. Clearly there's more to it than meets the eye. You'll be going in alone so you don't attract attention. We don't know who we're dealing with so if you need backup, call it in. Don't take any unnecessary risks." He looked at Aspen when he said this. "We're sending you in alone, no extraction team. You'll be getting yourselves out."

"Yes, sir."

"Get intel, don't engage unless absolutely necessary, understood?" They nodded. "Good. Dismissed. There's a briefing on the building in your apartment. We also took the liberty of updating your suit," he said to Steve. "And your gear," he added to Aspen. "You'll find them there as well."

…

"Well, I guess we'll skip the new apartment celebration," Aspen said when they returned to their apartment. "And finish unpacking later." She eyed the piles of books up against the wall along with the unhung pictures.

"I guess so."

"Let's see this new suit of yours," Aspen said. It was laid out on the bed, a deep solid blue with the traditional star on the chest and the SHIELD eagle on one arm. The material was much stronger than his old suit. "Nice, I like it." Her new gear included a new utility belt with top of the line gear. She examined each piece intently, sitting cross-legged on the bed. Steve watched her with a smile.

"What?" she asked, looking up at him.

"You're like a child on Christmas," he told her. "It's cute."

She stuck her tongue out at him and put the gear back. They spent a few minutes in silence, packing clothes and gear. After they had finished with that, Steve spread out the blueprints of the factory out on the coffee table and they leaned over it taking in the structure. "It's pretty isolated. Ideal place for some sort of secret facility. Possibly underground."

"Do you think it's still active?" Aspen wondered aloud.

"Possibly. We'll need to be careful. We don't know what we're going into."

"We'll go in expecting the worst."

"Never hurts to be prepared." Aspen went into their bedroom and grabbed her gear.

"We check it out and then go back tonight with our gear," she called to him. "We'd better get back to the Triskellion or we're going to miss our jet."

Steve grabbed his bag, packing away his new suit and carefully sealing his shield in the canvas bag he sometimes transported it in when he didn't want to draw attention to himself.

The quinjet was waiting for them along with Fury. He silently handed them two earpieces. "Keep in touch with headquarters," he said. "I'll be checking in and monitoring your progress. Find out who Wagner was working for and see what's hidden inside this factory if anything. Your mission is finding facts. If we need to send a team in to take some people out, we will. We can question them although like Wagner, they probably won't talk."

"I'm not getting into anyone's head," Aspen said abruptly.

"I'm not asking you to," Fury told her, turning his eye on her. "Good luck."

"Thank you, sir."

They boarded the quinjet, taking seats next to each other. "Well," Aspen said as the jet took off, leaving DC behind, "it seems like we just got here, and now we're leaving again, but I suppose this is exactly what I should have expected."

"We wouldn't have signed up for this if we thought we were going to have time to relax," Steve agreed.

"That's okay," Aspen said firmly. "I chose this. And now we're going on our first _real_ mission together. I'm not counting those crazy times we ran off and got ourselves into danger or that time Clint dragged us off on an unauthorized mission and almost got us killed." She frowned, missing Clint more than ever.

"You miss him."

"All the time," Aspen admitted.

"It's not like you'll never see him again," Steve assured her, squeezing her hand.

"I know, it just seems like it." Aspen didn't have a lot of people in her life to miss, but Clint was definitely one of them. She'd left her mom behind in New York to although the last she had heard, Ava had been thinking about moving to Arizona to live with her sister. She'd been tearful when Aspen had told her she was moving to Washington DC, but she'd given up trying to hold Aspen back. She'd already planned to spend Christmas with her mom wherever she was. For now that would have to be enough.

…

It didn't take long for Aspen's nerves to kick in once they'd landed in Munich. It was like she was back in training again working her first mission. She and Steve had been working on their fighting ever since they'd learned they were moving to DC. He had a definite talent for it and learned quickly, but she was slower at picking up on it. Speed and agility were on her side despite that, and she felt more confident that she would be able to defend herself if the situation called for it. Fury had informed them they would be starting training at the start of August and not just in combat. They would be learning foreign languages, how to crack codes and interpret encrypted information, and how to diffuse explosives. The list had gone on until Aspen's head was reeling and she was wondering if she had what it took to be an agent after all. She looked over at Steve, always the image of confidence. She knew he got nervous too sometimes, but right now he looked completely calm, face set in determination. As soon as the pilot gave them the all clear, they grabbed their bags and walked down the ramp and onto the airfield. A car was waiting for them with the keys in the ignition. Steve took the wheel, and Aspen put the address to the factory into the GPS system.

Steve found his way out into the city, and Aspen had to keep herself from pressing her face up against the window to stare at all the sights. "Have you ever been here?" she asked.

"Once during the war. The Nazis had a hold on the city, but with the help of the Howling Commandos and the Army we were able to free it. It looks a lot different now without all the destruction."

"For the first time since I've worked for SHIELD I actually feel like an agent," Aspen said.

"Does it have something to do with your new Level 6 badge?" Steve asked with a smile.

"Maybe, but it's more than that. At first I felt like I was continuing Artifact's work just supposedly for a better cause. Then all that personal stuff got in the way. This is an official mission though. We're a team. There is nothing involved with my past here – hopefully, nothing to do with Artifact or crazy people trying to steal my parents' work. Again hopefully."

"I'm just glad you have a chance to escape all that. How is your mom dealing with the move?"

"She finally realized she can't hold me back. Just because I move to a different city doesn't mean she won't ever see me again."

"Has she started looking for a cure?" Steve asked, referring to the Superhero Serum Aspen had been involuntarily injected with.

"She says she is, but I'm not sure. I don't think she has any idea how, but Aunt Vi promised she'd help if my mom does end up moving down to Arizona. She understands. I'm still playing around with the idea of using my power." She touched the cuff around her wrist. It was cold to the touch, but somehow it bothered her a little less than it had before. "I can see how it would be an asset. How it might save lives. I want to be a good agent, a _better_ agent, but I'm not entirely sure I want it to change me."

"Who says it will change you?"

"How could it not? It's like relearning how to function. You understand that. When you became a Super Soldier, you had to learn to use your new body, your new strengths. But this goes beyond that. It's more mental. I'm not physically stronger, but I can do more if I put my mind to it. I am interested in learning to control it. Fury seems to think he knows someone who can help me."

"It might be worth a shot. If it doesn't work out, you can always keep the cuff on or hopefully get the antidote."

"A part of me feels like I should stay this way – for my parents' work. I'm the only living subject. I _hate_ the sound of that though. Subject? I'm not some lab rat. Maybe that's what bothers me the most. I spent my entire life working for someone out of both fear and the hope that I might learn something about my past. I'm used to letting people manipulate me hoping I'll get something from it. I'm used to people simply using me to get what they want. I don't want to be that person anymore. I don't _ever_ want to let someone use me again. But maybe with this power I can turn it against them, protect myself better." She sighed. "I've been thinking about it a lot if you couldn't tell."

"I can. I think you need to do what feels right for you. Never mind what anyone else thinks. This is your choice."

"I know. I just wish I knew what I wanted." The GPS beeped, and Aspen turned her attention back to the road. They had come to an industrial section of the city. "We're almost here. Just a quarter mile."

She watched as the factories became more dilapidated until they reached one that looked as if it hadn't been used in decades. "Hidden in plain sight. Clever." Steve stopped the car and they got out. "If anyone approaches us, we're looking to buy." Steve gave her a nod and they walked forward, looking around them. Aspen pulled out her phone and set it to pick up on any signals that might come from equipment.

"I'm not getting anything on this level," she said as they completed their perimeter of the building. "If it's underground, this thing isn't going to pick up on anything."

Steve glanced around, scrutinizing the building. He took a few paces toward one of the loading docks at the back of the building. "Tire marks," he said, indicating a set of distinctive tire treads. "And footprints. Someone has been here recently."

"Unloading something. But where did it go?" She took a step toward the loading dock. "Let's look inside."

Steve made to follow her and then grabbed her arm, bringing a finger up to his lips to silence her. He pulled her around the side of the building and a moment later she heard a door open. They peered around the corner to see a man lighting a cigarette and taking a long drag. He looked around, and they flattened themselves to the building. They waited in silence for what seemed like ages until Steve said, "He went back inside."

"Well clearly there's something going on. We'll come back tonight and see if we can find a way in. I have night vision goggles that will help us find any secret entrances."

They got into the truck, and Aspen played around with the GPS until she found a list of SHIELD approved hotels. She picked one and put in the coordinates. "Might as well keep a low profile until then." The hotel was owned by a man who owed Fury a favor, they realized as they checked in. Aspen had planned on using an assumed name, but the man recognized Steve as Captain America at once and quickly assured them they'd be safe there. Aspen was hesitant at first, but she realized that if you owed Fury a favor, you probably wouldn't double cross him or his agents. They settled into their room, Aspen flopping down on the bed while Steve took out the notes Fury had left for them, sitting down in one of the dining chairs to study them.

"Really, you're going to read the notes again?" she teased him. He glanced up, brow furrowed.

"I just want to be prepared," he amended.

"You're _always_ prepared," Aspen told him, getting up and crossing the room. She put her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"And you're always distracting me," he told her.

"And you mind?" He turned his head and kissed her cheek.

"Not really. But we should focus on the mission. Fury is trusting us to get a job done."

"Yeah, tonight. We have hours before it gets dark. Are we really going to spend it rereading the notes for the mission?" she asked in a teasing voice. She could tell she was making Steve nervous. He got fidgety and stared down at the notes. "Alright." She backed off. "Maybe if you read them out loud we can pretend we're having a study session. I'll even take notes and memorize them by heart. Never hurts to be _over_ prepared."

Steve put down the notes and gave her a look that was a mixture of exasperation and amusement. "Very funny. I know you think I'm over prepared, but you don't have to harp on it."

"Alright, alright. I'm sorry!" She grinned at him and a moment later his lips tweaked up in a smile. He shut the folder and got up from the chair.

"I have them memorized anyway," he said, closing the space between them.

"I figured." Aspen stood still as he reached down to grasp her waist. His lips were on hers a moment later, and she forgot about the notes altogether.


	2. First Meeting

****Author's Note: ****Aspen and Steve's first meeting from Steve's point of view. :)

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><p><strong>First Meeting<strong>

**April 18, 2012**

Sometimes he thought the pencil gripped lightly in his hand was his only anchor to reality. His hand moved across the page, filling in the details and structures of the cityscape below him. It was much the same and yet so different. Lights flashed here and there spelling out messages he didn't understand. The cars moved faster and the people were louder. The stark quiet of the hospital room would have been almost welcome if it hadn't been so alien.

Nothing about waking up sixty-seven years in the future was normal though. Nothing in his life would ever be normal, he realized. It was gone, vanished like it had never existed yet the emotions and sorrows were still so close to the surface. For him it had been days. He'd made a date with Peggy before taking the plane down. He didn't even know if she was alive anymore. Everyone he knew could be dead. He was alone now in a world that had moved on without him. Though he remained calm on the outside, always the soldier, he was panicking on the inside. After he'd made his escape from SHIELD headquarters the day before he'd developed this nagging fear that stabbed at his temples. He didn't know this world, didn't recognize what it had become. How was he supposed to make his way in it? The man who had caught up to him in Times Square – Fury – had told him he could stay here, that there were people looking out for him. He'd been friendly enough, but Steve didn't trust easily. He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the blonde strands. For now he was safe. That would have to be enough.

A moment later he became aware that he wasn't alone. His hand paused on the pad, pencil hovering above the paper. He figured it was another nurse coming to check on him. There'd been a surplus of nurses lately, eager to get a sight of Captain America for themselves. So far none of them had gone so far as to actually see how he was. He turned to see who was standing there. The girl wasn't dressed like a nurse with her dark jeans and leather jacket. Her red hair hung just past her shoulders and blonde strands highlighted it in an unnatural sort of way. She had wide green eyes that, at the moment, looked embarrassed and somewhat frightened.

"Hi," she said, her voice timid. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." He studied her wondering why she was here. "I'm Aspen," she said after a pause. She held out a slender hand for him to take. "Director Fury sent me to help acclimate you to the 21st century." She bit her lip, waiting for him to speak or take her hand.

He stood, setting down his pad and pencil on the chair he had been sitting in. He took her hand, his own engulfing it. "Nice to meet you, ma'am," he said. "I'm Steve, but you probably already knew that." Normally, at least before the serum, he would never assume that anyone knew who he was. Now whenever he introduced himself, he hardly got through the first syllable of his name before someone was calling him Captain America instead of Steve. Not that he minded the title. It was just hard to realize Steve Rogers had a lot less meaning than Captain America. In fact, it held no meaning to these people who had been born decades after his supposed death.

"I'd rather hear it from you," the girl, Aspen, said with a smile. Steve looked at her in surprise. Her smile seemed genuine and the nervousness in her eyes had been replaced by a warmth that made him want to get to know her. He gave her a hesitant smile back. She looked young, perhaps early twenties, but the slender scar that ran from her eye down her cheekbone told him she had not led an easy life. Not wanting to stare, he brought his gaze back to her green eyes.

"How are you doing?" she asked and then grimaced. His smile slid away.

"I've been better," he said truthfully. There was no use feigning otherwise. Something told him she wouldn't believe him anyway. "This whole waking up in 2012 thing is something that takes more than a little adjusting."

"I can't even begin to imagine," Aspen said sympathetically. It was the first time someone had been so honest and genuine with him. Most people just assumed they knew what he was going through. He noticed the girl was looking a little uncomfortable and pulled out a chair for her before sitting back down near the window. She sat, looking out at the city below. "Has New York changed a lot?" she asked him.

"A lot of it has, but a lot of it is still the same," he said. "It's surreal." New York would always hold that bustling, overwhelming feel to it, but the technology and people had changed so much that he was almost afraid to go out and explore it. Another part of him was curious to investigate. Watching the city from behind glass for now was okay with him though.

"I'm sorry," Aspen blurted out suddenly, startling Steve. "I don't really know what I'm doing here or how I can help. I have no idea what it feels like to wake up sixty-seven years in the future. I honestly hadn't even heard of Captain America until a year ago. Maybe I should just go." She stood up, making to leave, but Steve put out a hand to stop her.

"You don't have to leave," he told her. He didn't know why but suddenly he didn't want her to leave. She was the first person he'd met in this time that had actually taken an interest in him as a person. The first to have a conversation with her. "I honestly wouldn't mind just talking to someone," he said. "A distraction would really help. Why don't you tell me about yourself? Do you work for SHIELD?" She seemed too young for that, but he wasn't entirely sure what SHIELD did yet.

"Yeah, sort of. I mean, I do, but I'm also going to school at Columbia University. I'm studying science. My parents were scientists. They worked for SHIELD for awhile." She stopped talking abruptly, biting her lip again.

"What field of science are you studying?" Steve prompted her.

"I haven't committed but I'm torn between astrophysics and genetics," she said.

"That's some heavy stuff. You must be gifted," he told her with a smile.

She blushed, looking abashed. "My parents get the credit for that," she told him.

"You said your parents _were _scientists," he prompted. "Are they no longer in that line of work?" The moment he asked that he regretted it. Aspen's eyes saddened, and he recognized the look of someone who had lost a lot of people.

"It's complicated," she replied quietly, picking at the zipper on her jacket. "I thought that they were dead, but it turns out they faked their own deaths to protect themselves and me. I was three. I have no idea where they are right now."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Steve told her, feeling shocked. "My parents died when I was young," he said. Nothing complicated about that. Aspen looked up at him in surprise. "I went to live in an orphanage when I was five," he added.

"I had no idea," she said. "That must have been hard. I had an aunt to live with, but it wasn't the same as having parents."

"It was difficult," he agreed, his gaze drifting off to the window. It was always hard talking about loss, but at least that had happened a long time ago. "I was fortunate to meet a boy who became my best friend a few years later though. He helped me through a lot of rough times." He smiled wistfully at the thought of Bucky. Even if Bucky hadn't fallen to his death, he'd still be lost to Steve. He'd have grown old and possibly died thinking his friend was dead and buried in the arctic.

"I'm glad you had someone," Aspen said, bringing him back to the present. "Maybe you'll meet someone here who can help you through all this." She leaned forward as she spoke, her smile reflecting in her eyes. For a moment Steve just looked at her, taking in that warmth he needed so badly right now. Another human being to talk to. Someone who wasn't in awe of him and didn't want to use him.

"Maybe I already have," he said. His words surprised him and he half expected Aspen to pull back, affronted by his forwardness. Instead she smiled.

"Maybe you have," she said. "Where did you learn to draw like that?" She nodded toward the sketchpad. Steve had forgotten he'd been sketching. He looked over at the cityscape he'd been drawing.

"I've always loved drawing," he said. "It was a form of escape when times got rough. When I was in my late teens, I took some art classes with my friend Bucky."

"I wish I could draw," Aspen told him sounding wistful. "I don't really have any special talents like that."

"I'm sure you have something," Steve told her. "You're good at science clearly." She seemed to doubt herself probably because she hadn't grown up with parents to encourage her.

"Yes, but I don't play a musical instrument or write poetry or draw."

"It's never too late to learn something." He wanted to tell her that there was more to life than that. Her reaching out to him the way she was meant more to him than he could say. She didn't judge, didn't pry. That was a special talent whether she realized it or not.

"If I had time. Between working for SHIELD and going to college, I'm a bit short on that."

"What do you do for SHIELD?" he asked her.

"I work in the Department of Unknown Objects. I'm the only one who calls it that. It's kind of like the Department of Mysteries from Harry Potter." He stared at her in confusion. "Sorry, it's just a series of books. A very good, must read series."

"I'll remember that." He realized that catching up on everything he had missed was going to be a long task. Then it dawned on him that he was already looking toward the future, figuring out how to adapt. A few minutes before he'd felt as if he could never join this new and frightening world and now he was already finding things to put his mind to.

"…collect and catalogue items that SHIELD obtains," Aspen was saying. Steve turned his attention back to her. "I conduct experiments when necessary and basically try to see if an object is dangerous or not and what it does. Ever since we had a Norse god and his hammer fall to Earth, SHIELD has been trying to keep objects of unknown power safely locked away. I also sometimes go on missions to obtain objects. _Used _to. I'm…taking a break from that for awhile. I suppose that's my special talent. Smuggling. I used to work for an organization that obtained objects and then sold them to the highest bidder."

"What happened?" he asked. He couldn't picture her smuggling. She looked so innocent, so young. How could someone like her wind up doing something like that?

"They tried to kill me when I wasn't forthcoming about some top secret information they thought I knew about. A SHIELD agent saved me and took me under his wing. I got lucky."

"It sounds like you've had a rough life," he said with a frown.

She shrugged. "I like to think it builds character," she said. "Or at least that's what people tell me. Somehow it doesn't really help. No matter what people tell you, it still happened. There are memories I can't forget. Scars I can't erase." Her hand went to her cheek almost unconsciously, touching the scar. Steve's eyes followed her hand.

"Who did that to you?" he asked, his voice coming out angrier than he had intended. He didn't like bullies, and he would bet the person who'd done this to her was exactly that.

"I don't know who he was," she said. "I was on a mission and something went wrong. I got caught, got hurt..." She noticed that Steve had balled his hands into fists, but he didn't seem to notice. "Enough of this heavy talk," Aspen said, forcing a smile. "How would you like to go see New York? With a tour guide this time?"

Steve seemed to think about this for a minute, then he nodded. "I'd like to get out of this room," he said. "Is Fury alright with me leaving?" His tone indicated that he was not happy being kept here.

"He told me to look after you. I don't see how keeping you locked in this room is going to help." She stood and Steve followed suit, grabbing his leather jacket from a hook next to the bed. He shoved his sketchpad and pencil in the inside pocket before he followed her out of the room, keeping close as she took them through the med bay and toward the front entrance of SHIELD. They passed several agents, and Aspen seemed to shrink, keeping her eyes firmly on the floor. Steve watched them curiously as one of them stopped to speak to Aspen.

"I thought you'd had your fill of superheroes, Tolvar. At least this one _is_ a hero this time. Be careful with that one," he threw the last remark at Steve who frowned.

"Ignore them," Aspen muttered, picking up the pace. Steve followed her, glaring back at the two men.

"What was that about?" he asked. If _that_ was the way employees were treated, no wonder Aspen seemed to lack self-confidence.

Aspen didn't meet his eyes when she said, "Let's just say that not a lot of people trust me after something that happened this winter." Steve threw her a confused glance. He'd been frozen this winter. Everything other than what he'd had for breakfast was news to him. "I put my trust in the wrong person and it kind of blew up in my face," Aspen added. "I have trust issues now, and half of SHIELD thinking I'm the most naïve and inexperienced employee is not helpful."

"Everybody makes mistakes," Steve told her. Whatever she'd done, that was no excuse for anyone treating her that way.

She threw him a grateful smile. "Thank you for not judging me," she said.

"I don't know you well enough to judge you. Even if I did, I wouldn't judge you," he said honestly. He'd lived a life full of pre-conceived notions and people who didn't take the time to actually get to know him.

"Then you're one of a kind," Aspen told him, glancing sideways at him. _Or maybe just old fashioned_, he thought.

…

They ended up in Central Park. Aspen had let him drive her car – so much sleeker and faster than anything he'd ever driven before. "This hasn't changed," he said, indicating the park.

"Some things never do change. I love coming here just to think and take a break from the world," she told him. "Sometimes things in my line of work get a little too intense. It's not like working a normal office job or any normal job really. I can't come home from work and rant to my friends about a tough day. I can't tell anyone what I do. Well, nearly anyone," she said, smiling at Steve.

"What do your friends think you do?" he asked.

Aspen sighed. "I don't really have many friends," she said. "I don't get out a lot. I have a few people I sit by in classes and study with, but other than that, I tend to keep to myself. The only people I would really consider a friend are the man who introduced me to SHIELD and a girl in the science division. Clint's away a lot though, so I don't get to see him very often and Jemma is usually really busy."

"Everyone I knew is either dead or close to death," Steve said. The words sounded morose and full of self-pity. He couldn't bring himself to care just then though.

"That's worse," Aspen replied. "I couldn't imagine. Do they know you're alive?"

"I don't think so. I don't think Fury has told anyone I'm alive." _He hasn't told me if any of _them_ are alive._

"How about your friend? The one you mentioned earlier. Is he still alive do you know?" she asked. This he could answer.

"No," he said. "I know for a fact that he's dead. He fell. During the war – World War II, that is." He could see it all again – the train, the snowy mountains, the broken metal and then Bucky falling. He relived it in slow motion sometimes at night when he was deep within a dream. Watching your best friend fall to his death wasn't really something you could just get over.

"I'm sorry." Somehow that cliché had a way of sounding heartfelt when Aspen said it.

He smiled sadly at her. "He was the best friend I ever had. It seems like yesterday that I lost him. Heck, it was only a few days ago that I was still fighting a war. Now I'm told the war is over. That we're fighting another one now." He'd learned that much from Fury. He would have asked about it more, but he was still getting over the initial shock of his awakening.

"War is never over," Aspen said softly. "We might be done fighting one person, one army, but there's always someone else out there to make an enemy of."

"But there's always something worth fighting for," Steve added.

"I suppose that's true. I'm not sure what _I'm_ fighting for anymore…" she trailed off, looking a little flustered. In their meandering, they had come to a small duck pond. A bench sat near the edge, and Aspen sat down, crossing her legs and wrapping her arms around her as if she was cold. Steve sat down next to her.

"You sound unhappy," he said. "It's not any of my business, but it seems to me like someone as young as you should have something more to look forward to." His life as he knew it might have ended, but she was in the right decade.

"Maybe I'm just tired," she said. "Sometimes you just stop caring. I'm sorry. God, when did this turn into a sob story about me? I'm not the one who just woke up sixty-seven years in the future."

"I don't mind listening," he told her. "For awhile there I forgot why I was feeling so bad." In the last two days he'd been so focused on himself – what he'd lost, who he'd lost. It was time he got out of that mind-set. He'd never been one to be selfish; it just wasn't him.

Aspen smiled. "I'm glad I could help," she said. "Thanks for listening," she added. "I don't get that much." She gave him a shy look.

He looked at her, blue eyes serious. "You said you only had two friends, but now you have three," he said.

Her smile grew. "I guess I did alright?" she asked. "I was afraid I'd run out of things to say in the first minute."

Steve shook his head. "I wouldn't think that. You're the first person who has shown genuine interest in me since I woke up. Everyone else seems like they have something to gain."

"Just doing my job," she said bashfully. "I don't have anything to gain. Just a friend." She smiled at this. "I have to say, you're nothing like I imagined. I mean, I didn't really know anything about you except that you're Captain America. But you're a lot more than that. You're a person just like me. You've suffered and lost and hurt just the same as anyone else. More than anyone else after what you've been through."

And those words meant the world to him. It was that acceptance, that acknowledgement that he was still a human being and not just a Super Soldier that he had been needing so badly. "Thanks for seeing past the name," he said quietly. "I've never been entirely comfortable with it," he added. "People keep shaking my hand. One of the doctors said that his father had been a fan. I'm just a person."

"You're a hero. I heard about what you did during World War II. You basically sacrificed your own life to save a lot of people."

"I guess I'm just afraid that I can't live up to the legend, that I can't live up to Captain America." Maybe there wasn't a place for Captain America in this world, but was there a place for Steve Rogers?

"It's a lot of pressure," Aspen agreed. "My whole life I felt like I had to live up to someone's expectations no matter what they were. Then I realized that the only person's expectations I have to live up to are my own. Other people think they know where my life is going, where it _should_ go, but that's my choice."

"I wish it was that easy." He'd never regretted the Super Soldier Serum, but sometimes he craved the normalcy of being an ordinary human.

"You just need time," she told him. "People are crazy if they expect you to adjust to the 21st century and go back to saving the world in a week."

"Fortunately the world doesn't need saving right now." At least he didn't think it did…

They fell quiet for a long while, watching the ducks floating lazily around the pond. Steve pulled out his sketchpad and began to draw almost mechanically. He felt calm when he sketched, letting himself sink into the flow of the lines as they formed a picture. He lost track of time as he drew. Aspen had leaned her head back and shut her eyes, her posture finally relaxing.

"You're really good at that." Steve finished his drawing of the duck pond and tore the page out of the sketchpad. He handed it to Aspen.

"Keep it," he told her.

"Really?" She took the page. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." For a moment the mask fell away, and he could see the true Aspen no longer timid or nervous. He found in that moment that he wanted to know that side of her. He wanted to help her like she'd helped him. Little did he know then just how much they would help each other as this new decade dawned bright and a little frightening.


	3. Night Vision

**Night Vision**

**July 20, 2012**

Aspen woke with a start. She'd been dreaming about being inside of Wagner's mind, and it left her feeling uncomfortable. She couldn't imagine anyone invading her mind in that way. It was the highest form of intrusion she thought, having a stranger poke and prod your mind, stealing memories that didn't belong to them.

"Hey, it's getting dark," Steve said. Aspen sat up. He was dressed in his new gear, the dark blue fabric a nice contrast to his blonde hair and greyish blue eyes. It was still patriotic with the white star emblazoned on the chest, but somehow much more modern and subtle. He grabbed his shield from where it rested against the wall, sliding it over his left arm.

"How long was I out?" Aspen asked, sliding her feet onto the floor and stretching her arms.

"A few hours."

"Guess I'm more exhausted than I thought." Somehow moving had been more exhausting than a typical mission. Perhaps it was the packing and unpacking or the change in scenery or the overall stress of the move.

"You alright for tonight?" Steve asked, giving her a concerned look.

"Yeah. I'm good." She grabbed her clothes for the mission and changed in the bathroom, strapping her belt around her waist. They left the hotel by the backdoor to avoid drawing attention to themselves. They came across no one, but Aspen didn't relax until they had reached the SHIELD car.

"Park behind one of the other factories," she instructed Steve as he got behind the wheel. He nodded to show he'd heard and started the engine. They rode in silence, each in their own thoughts. Aspen was feeling decidedly nervous. The realization that they were going in alone on this hit her. There was no Clint to back them up, no team. She glanced over at Steve – at least he had a better sense of this, she thought, but he was looking nervous too, gripping the wheel a little too tightly.

When they reached the outskirts of the factory district, he cut the lights and pulled behind an expansive factory. "Do you remember which one it is?" Aspen asked. In the dark everything looked the same to her.

Steve slid his shield over his arm again. "This way." He led her around the building, foot falls silent. Aspen followed his lead, relying on the stealth training Clint had worked on with her. They kept to the shadows though fortunately for them the moon was blocked behind chalky clouds. Aspen recognized the factory as they approached. All was silent and dark as it had been before. They went around the back to the loading bay. A heavy vinyl flap closed off the entrance giving it a deceivingly innocent appearance. Getting inside the building would be easy, but finding any secrets the building held would be a little trickier.

When they were inside, Aspen slid on her night vision glasses and appraised their surroundings. It had all the appearances of a run down factory with abandoned equipment now rusted over from disuse, overturned file boxes spilling dusty material, and a network of loose chains and hooks that dangled down from the ceiling like reaching claws. Not an optimistic place by any means. Aspen clicked on the heat sensor and gazed around looking for any signs of human activity. So far it only picked up on her and Steve's body heat. She wandered into the next room which was much the same as the first.

A door led off to the side, and she took it, Steve trailing after her. She realized she wasn't nervous anymore as she gazed around the dark building. She was actually enjoying herself and as the glasses picked up on a weak heat signature, she felt a surge of excitement. She motioned to Steve and followed a second hallway into what had once been an office. On the wall across form a dusty desk, an orange handprint glowed brightly. Aspen walked up to the wall and stretched out a hand. She hesitated. What if it only responded to certain handprints? But how would anyone else know where to press? She made a decision and pressed her hand against the wall. There was a click and a panel opened to their left.

"How did you know that was there?" Steve asked, sounding impressed.

"Heat vision," Aspen explained quietly. "Picks up on heat signatures. Someone pressed their hand to that exact spot recently. Be on your guard." As if she needed to tell him. She could see by the set of his shoulders that he was on alert. They entered the secret door and as it sealed behind them, Aspen realized there was no going back.

…

Steve's senses were on alert as he and Aspen made their way down the musty hall. He was taken back to his days working with the Howling Commandos, taking down hidden Hydra bases all over Europe. For a second he could imagine Bucky by his side, his steadfast friend. The memory faded into darkness, and he realized he had fallen behind. He hurried to catch up to Aspen, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand.

The narrow corridor seemed to go on forever, leading downward all the while. Steve was starting to feel claustrophobic when the hall finally ended with a steel door and a single light bulb. Aspen slipped off the night vision glasses and turned to him. "We need to be ready for anything," she said. "There's no knowing what's behind the door." Steve nodded. He'd had plenty of moments like that during the war. He noticed a panel next to the door.

"Looks like we need a code," he said aloud.

Aspen pulled out her phone. "Natasha loaded this program on my phone last time she was at New York headquarters," she told him. She held the phone up to the panel and a sequence of numbers appeared on the screen of the phone. "Fingerprints leave behind grease spots. The strongest is the last digit pressed, the faintest the first," she explained.

"In my day we would have just knocked."

Aspen gave him a surprised look. "Captain America telling jokes? Now I really have heard it all." She punched in the digits and the doors slid open. Steve braced himself but the only thing that met them was an empty room. A large metal table sat in the very center of the room. Schematics and notes lay strewn across the top in a careless manner, and Aspen quickly scanned them, taking photos on her phone of several papers. Steve glanced down at them. They were mostly formulas he couldn't wrap his mind around.

"I'm sending these to Fury," Aspen said.

"What are they?" he asked, hoping she understood them.

"Formulas for experiments," Aspen replied, her tone indicating that this wasn't good.

"What kind of experiments?" he asked.

She took a second to answer. "Human ones. This is complex. It almost looks as if they're trying to give special abilities to people."

"Like your parents' work?"

"The basis is similar, but this is different. This is less about the brain and more about physical abilities."

"Who would be trying to do this?" Steve asked.

Aspen shrugged. "That's what we need to find out. There are a lot of rogue scientists out there. A.I.M. isn't the only one although they've been number one on SHIELD's enemy list for awhile now. If a person has the money, he or she can do just about anything with the right equipment and a place to experiment."

They approached the set of doors on the other side of the room and found another key code panel to the side. Aspen did the same trick with her phone to get them in. The doors slid open and they entered what appeared to be a laboratory. Steve tensed, looking around for any signs of people, but the lab appeared abandoned. Dim fluorescents shed light over the concrete walls and floor. Long tables held instruments and beakers and other tools Steve couldn't put a name to.

Something had been bothering him. "You said someone had recently opened that panel?" he asked Aspen.

She nodded. "Ten minutes at most."

"I don't like this," he said, turning in a circle so that he could observe the entire room. Equipment was still lit up with power and notes lay scattered across the worktables. "Looks like someone was just here."

"So where are they now?" Aspen put words to his thoughts. She walked over to the far wall where glass windows closed off what could only be described as cells. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what the cells were made to hold.

"Oh my god," Aspen said in a hoarse whisper. She stood in front of one of the cells, a look of horror on her face. Steve crossed the room and looked into the cell, adrenaline pumping as he readied himself for whatever was inside. A man lay crumpled on the floor in the corner. His pale bare back was to them. Steve could see the spine extenuated against his emaciated body. His pants were loose and ragged, and he wore no shoes. A red sore stood out on the back of his neck, coated in dried blood and puss. As Steve and Aspen stood there staring, the man slowly turned around to face them.

Aspen gasped, and Steve took an involuntary step back. "Wagner." The man was hardly recognizable with sunken eyes and cheeks and clumps of hair missing.

"Oh god." Aspen held her hand to her mouth like she was going to be sick. "What have they done to him?"

Steve had no answer to that. Wagner looked close to death. No matter what trouble the man had caused them in Austria, Steve would never wish this fate upon anyone. Clearly Wagner had been experimented on extensively, and the experiments had not gone well. Wagner stared blankly up at them, and Steve didn't know if he recognized them or was beyond help. He opened his mouth as if to speak. Aspen stood frozen. Steve strained his ears to hear what Wagner was trying to say. As the man choked out the words, Steve tensed, realizing too late that they'd let down their guard in their shock over seeing him.

"Behind you," Wagner managed before his eyes rolled back and he slumped to the floor either dead or unconscious. Steve and Aspen whirled around in time to see something fly at them. They both ducked as a chair smashed into the glass, causing it to shatter, raining broken glass down on Wagner's prone body. A man stood before them, and Steve realized he'd managed to approach them undetected. Very few people if any could sneak up on Steve with his heightened senses.

"Impressive isn't he?" a voice called out. Steve looked around but couldn't find the source of the voice. Aspen nudged him and nodded at a speaker on the wall. "One of a few successful subjects. I can't think of a better way to test them than on you." Steve gripped his shield tighter. The doors opposite the ones they'd come in through opened and another man came into the room. The man was taller than Steve by a head and had muscles to rival the Hulk. The doors slammed shut behind him effectively trapping them in the room with the two subjects.

"Who are you?" Steve asked the voice coming from the speakers.

"One of many who will be your undoing," the voice replied.

"The Baron?" Aspen asked.

The voice chuckled. "His trail is cold. You will not find him here."

"Why do you want us dead?" Aspen asked.

"I don't care one way or another. I just want to prove that a new age is coming – that it is ready to change the world and you will be powerless to stop it."

"New age?" Steve asked.

"Much as I'd love to tell you about it, I have somewhere else to be. Take it from me, this world isn't big enough for people like you and people like me. Very soon you will find that there are no safe places, there are no allies or friends. You will be defeated then if not now, and the world will see that there are no heroes. Take them down." He directed his last words at his two subjects. The command rang throughout the room. The Hulkish man grabbed the edge of one of the worktables and heaved it over shattering beakers and test tubes. Aspen and Steve leapt back to avoid the mess of equipment.

"What are the chances of reaching an agreement using diplomacy?" Aspen asked.

Steve looked up at the two men, but the stealthy one had vanished. He whirled around just in time to avoid a fist to the head. The huge man charged at the same time. "Not great," he said, pulling Aspen out of the way. He fought back the urge to tell Aspen to stand back and let him handle this. They were partners now and super humans or not, she had every right to fight alongside him.

"What's the plan?" Aspen asked him, keeping her eyes on both super humans.

"I don't suppose your darts work on super humans?" he asked hopefully.

Aspen frowned. "Not so much. They didn't work on Barney because he'd been physically enhanced. I could try, but I think it'd be useless."

"Plan B then. As far as I can tell, stealthy isn't terribly fast or strong – not that you couldn't take him if he was," he added quickly with a smile. "You take him. I'll take muscles."

"Deal." Aspen ran at the stealthy man, dodging to the side at the last minute and striking from behind. The man stumbled but quickly regained his balance, sizing up Aspen.

Steve turned his attention to the big man. His arms were almost too muscular, grotesquely so with veins popping. He seemed to be relying on strength instead of tactics, Steve thought as he took a wild swing at Steve's head. Steve dodged the blow and feinted, striking out at the man's back. The man lurched but it was like kicking a brick wall. Steve ducked under flailing arms and struck his shield at the man's head. To his surprise, then man caught the shield. Steve stood still for a moment, and then leapt aside as the man threw the shield at Steve's head with all his might. It hit the wall and rebounded off.

"Watch out!" he shouted to Aspen as it went flying toward her head. She dropped to the floor and the shield hit the stealthy man in the face. He let out a surprised cry which was coupled with a sickening crunch. He slumped to the floor, nose a broken and bloody mess. Aspen didn't hesitate before grabbing the fallen shield. She tossed it to Steve who slid it over his left arm.

"How do we do this?" Aspen asked as the big man took another swing at Steve. He ducked and struck up at the man's chin with his shield. The man stumbled back a pace but recovered quickly. Steve had the feeling that brute force wasn't going to take him down. As if to prove this point, the giant man lunged at Steve, huge fists flailing. As Steve tried to dodge the spontaneous attack, he stumbled against some of the broken equipment on the floor. The man clipped his chin, sending him flying across the room. He hit the wall hard enough to crack the stone. Stars burst in front of his eyes and pain surged through his spine. He struggled to get up but the man was already upon him. His large hand wrapped around Steve's leg pulling him straight off the ground. The blood rushed to his head as he dangled upside down. Before he had a chance to free himself, the man grunted and fell to his knees, loosening his grip on Steve. Steve took the chance to strike the man's hand with his shield as hard as he could. The man dropped him with a howl, and Steve scrambled to his feet. Something grabbed the man around the neck, and Steve watched as Aspen pressed two tasers into either side of the man's beefy neck. Spindly cords of electricity flickered against his skin. He howled in pain, scrabbling to tear Aspen from his shoulders. She pressed the tasers harder against his skin, holding on for dear life, until the giant's eyes rolled up into his head and he fell, unconscious, to the ground. Aspen leaped off of him and stowed her tasers away. She offered a hand to Steve.

"That was impressive," he told her, taking her hand. "Thanks."

"We're a team, remember?" she said. "No one tosses my partner around and gets away with it."

"Now we just have to figure out how to get out of here…" Steve looked around at the two sealed doors. As if on cue, the door the big man had come through slid open.

"Why do I feel like we're being led straight into a trap?" Aspen asked.

"Probably because we are." Steve studied the other door but he could see no way to open it from this side. Aspen had gone back over to Wagner's cell, carefully stepping over the jagged shards of glass that had once kept him captive.

"Is he dead?" Steve joined her, keeping a careful eye on the two unconscious men.

"Yeah. What did they do to him and why?" she asked looking up at him. Her eyes glinted with unshed tears.

"I don't know. You can see where they cut out the tracker." He indicated the raw wound on the back of his neck. "It looks like they experimented on him." Needle marks dotted Wagner's neck. "Whatever they injected him with didn't work."

"Changing people the way they were trying to do is tricky. It's unnatural. Few people would survive the process especially if they haven't perfected whatever they're injecting them with. People weren't meant to be changed like this."

"Whoever is behind all of this clearly doesn't care about the lives wasted in the name of his experiments," Steve said angrily.

"Part of the reason I got out of this business when I did. In the world of studying DNA and the changing and enhancing of it, you find far too much of this sort of thing. We live in a world obsessed with super abilities whether for better or for worse." Steve was reminded of Stewart's experiments and subsequent injection he'd forced on Aspen. It still made his blood boil to think about that.

"Let's get out of here before they wake up," Steve suggested, nodding to the two unconscious subjects.

"Wait, look at this." Aspen drew his attention back to the cell. Steve looked down to see what she was pointing at. A shard of glass lay near Wagner's slack fingers. Bloodstains formed words on the cement floor. Steve felt his pulse quicken as he read the name: Strucker.

"Do you suppose-" Aspen was cut off when an alarm began to blare and red lights flared overhead.

"We need to go," Steve said. Aspen followed him out of the cell and toward the doors. There was a creak and the doors moved to shut. Steve threw his shield at them, managing to wedge the disk between the two doors, halting their closure. Aspen slid under the shield, and Steve followed, pulling the shield out after him. As soon as the shield was free of the doors, they slammed shut, leaving them in a dark corridor with only the flashing red lights to guide them.

From what Steve could see of the corridor they had entered, metal walls led forward into darkness. He felt Aspen slip her fingers into his. They kept going because there was no other way to go. He hated feeling trapped like this, playing straight into an unknown enemy's hands but what choice did they have?

The corridor led forward and then bent at a 90-degree angle. Shortly after they took the bend, they came to another set of metal doors. There was just a single button on the wall, and Steve realized they had come to an elevator. Aspen looked up at him and then reached forward to push the button in. The elevator clattered to life taking a long time to reach the bottom. They waited anxiously as the doors creaked open. Hands still clasped, they got into the small contraption. Their anxiety made it seem even tighter, and as Aspen pressed the up arrow button, he had to steady his breathing and force himself to stay calm. The lift started up, and they both readied themselves, Aspen releasing Steve's hand and pulling out her dart guns. Steve repositioned his shield.

"I think it's safe to say they know we're here," Aspen said. "Are we really that bad at stealth?"

"They could have been tipped off," Steve suggested.

"By who? No one knows we're here other than SHIELD."

"The man at the hotel knows," Steve said quietly.

"You think he'd cross Fury?" Aspen asked.

"I think that some people will do anything for the right price."

"No extraction team, and we still don't know who Wagner was working for. This is looking like another dead end. Hopefully not literally."

"We have a name," Steve reminded her.

"Strucker? Have you heard of him?" Aspen asked.

"Not in a long time," Steve replied. "Not since my time." Before he had the chance to elaborate, the elevator rumbled to a stop and whether they were ready or not, the doors slid open.


	4. Baron Strucker

**Author's Note: **If you haven't already, please check out my best friend's (blankinkonbluelines) story _Bleak Winter_. It is an amazing Bucky story that takes place during the first Captain America movie but fills in a lot of the gaps. Also I've got a poll posted for what story you would like to see from me next (probably pretty far in the future, but hopefully not too far!) So please go and vote to help me decide which to write first. Or I could just do both. I probably will, but I'd still like your vote!

Anyway, please enjoy! Next chapter is Aspen's first meeting with Clint from his point of view. (PS - if you ever get the chance to read a Hawkeye comic, do. He is THE BEST. Also in _Avengers Assemble_ he is hilarious.)

* * *

><p><strong>Baron Strucker<strong>

The elevator doors slid open revealing darkness. Aspen's hand was steady on her dart gun. Her senses were on high alert but the dark interior of the warehouse was silent and still. She could only hear her own controlled breathing. They stepped out of the elevator in unison. It immediately closed behind them and rattled back downward leaving no trace that it had ever been there.

"There's no one here," Aspen said aloud.

"What was the point of all that?" Steve sounded as confused as she felt.

"I don't know. I feel like it was some sort of test, but I'm not sure it was a test of living or dying."

"They didn't mean for us to die whoever 'they' are."

"What did the voice mean? '_I just want to prove that a new age is coming – that it is ready to change the world and you will be powerless to stop it_'?" Aspen asked.

"I don't know. Nothing good."

"The name Wagner wrote. Strucker-"

"Let's get out of here first before I tell you that story," Steve said, looking around as if he'd heard something. Aspen didn't argue. The empty warehouse was giving her chills. Something felt off.

"It doesn't make sense," she said as she followed him out the way they had come. "Why would they leave all that stuff lying around for us to see?"

"I don't know, and I don't like not knowing."

They had reached the dirty road that lay between the looming warehouses. "I think maybe it was a demonstration," Aspen said a moment later.

"Demonstration? Of what?"

"Of what they are capable of. We're dealing with people who care so little for human life that they're willing to experiment to get what they want. Those men were enhanced in a way that surpasses normal science. The work they were doing is advanced. Incredibly advanced. Whoever they are, we shouldn't underestimate them."

"Did you hear something?" Steve asked. He had stopped walking and stood still, looking back at the warehouse. A moment later it erupted in flames, the explosion rocking the ground and sending bits of metal flying at them. Steve pulled Aspen into him, protecting both of them with his shield. Kneeling under him, Aspen couldn't see what was happening, but she heard several chunks of the building clunk overhead against Steve's shield.

"I guess they weren't leaving anything behind after all," Aspen said when the worst of the explosion was over and Steve was pulling her to her feet.

Steve was watching the building burn with a forlorn look on his face. "I doubt those men made it out."

"Probably not." Aspen felt a tug of sympathy. They couldn't help that they'd been experimented on, perhaps brainwashed. "Even more reason to track this organization down and end it. I'm tired of innocent lives being taken in the name of science."

Steve took her hand. "Come on. We should get out of here."

"What now? All the evidence was destroyed. All we've got is a name and some snapshots of some of their work."

"We've got a possible informant back at the hotel," Steve reminded her.

"Right, Mr. Tattletale. He could have been forced."

"That's true. Only one way to find out." They had reached the truck and Steve got into the driver's side. He handed Aspen his shield, and she held it to her like a pillow, staring at the burning factory that lit up the night sky. Steve pulled away from the site, driving quickly back to the hotel.

The front desk was devoid of any employee, and the hotel itself was silent. Aspen immediately had a bad feeling. Steve seemed to share that feeling because he stiffened next to her. "Something is wrong."

He nodded. "Where's the man who runs the hotel?"

Aspen edged her way down the hall. All the guests were either gone or had locked themselves into their rooms. No one stirred within the building. Steve left her for a moment to search the upstairs. He returned with their bags shaking his head. "No one. I even tried knocking on some of the doors."

"We haven't tried the basement," Aspen said. "Isn't that where bad things usually happen?"

"In my experience bad things can happen anywhere, but it's worth checking." He followed her toward the door to the basement. It was closed but unlocked. Steve let her go first or at least didn't argue when she forged ahead. The steps creaked as they found their way downward. As Aspen set foot on the concrete floor, the light above her flickered ominously. She kept her eyes forward, dart gun held firmly. As she walked around the stairs, she stopped short. The owner of the hotel sat in a wooden chair a pool of blood at his feet. His shirt had been ripped off, and words had been carved into his chest. Aspen forgot to breathe. Steve joined her, and she looked over to see that his face had startled horror written across it. She turned back to the words carved into the man's chest.

**Hail Hydra**

"We need to get out of here," Steve said. "Now." He grabbed Aspen's arm and hauled her up the stairs. They were in the truck and speeding out of the parking lot when the gun firing started.

"I knew this couldn't be so easy!" Aspen said, ducking as the window next to her caught a bullet. The window cracked slightly but didn't break.

Steve pressed on the accelerator, and loose gravel skidded under the tires. They were on the outskirts of Munich but they still were drawing attention to themselves as two black cars pulled out onto the streets behind them. Traffic was nearly nonexistent at this time of night as they sped through the city but a few passersby stared at them with shocked interest.

"Who the hell are they? I thought they didn't want us dead!" Aspen said, looking back.

"He said he didn't care one way or another," Steve clarified, making a sharp turn. They continued their mad drive until they reached the outskirts of the city and the land turned to meadows and hills. They were going way too fast, but the cars were still right behind them.

"This isn't how I'd imagined spending tonight," Aspen said. "I was thinking head back to DC and sleep. Why didn't Fury send an extraction team? I guess I didn't want to question it yesterday or didn't want to ask for one. Why are we getting out of this without any help?"

"I don't know. He must have had his reasons. Maybe this is a test."

"He sent these people after us?"

"No, but maybe he's testing us to see how we get out of it."

"_If_ we get out of this," Aspen muttered. "This is a SHIELD truck right? What tricks does it have up its hood?" She played around with some of the buttons on the dash but only succeeded in turning on the air conditioning. "There's got to be something." Another round of firing hit the back windshield. She pulled down the sun visor in front of her. Instead of there being a mirror there was a screen. She poked it experimentally.

"_Initiating SHIELD systems. Please identify yourself_," a crisp female voice came from the speakers. Aspen jumped.

"Aspen Tovar, SHIELD agent," she said. It came out as more of a question.

"_Accepted._"

"Do you have any sort of artillery in this thing?" Aspen asked.

"_This SHIELD vehicle is equipped with long-range rifles found in under the backseats and short-range missiles._"

"Well that's more like it! How do I fire missiles? Wait, no, I'll stick with the guns." Aspen unbelted herself and climbed into the backseat. She pulled a rifle out of the seat. "I'm going to shoot out their tires. Or try to," Aspen said. "Do these rifles have targeting systems?" she asked the vehicle.

"_The long-range rifles do not have a targeting system_," the car responded.

"Good old-fashioned shooting then." Aspen opened the back window a sliver and pushed the muzzle of the rifle out. She closed one eye and focused on the scope. It was difficult to see in the dark, but she concentrated, steadying her breathing as if she was shooting archery. She aimed at the tire of the nearest car and fired. The bullet missed and hit the edge of the front bumper instead. She cursed and took aim again. Waiting a few seconds before firing again, she evened her breathing and heartbeat. Then she fired. The tire flattened and the car veered across the road. The second vehicle ran straight into the side, rolling the first over.

"Score, now get us out of here!" Aspen pulled herself back into the front seat. "They won't be going anywhere soon."

"Nice work." Steve sent her a smile before flattening the pedal to the floor.

"So Hydra," Aspen said after a moment, thinking back to the words carved into the man's chest. "I thought they disappeared after you defeated Red Skull." She thought back to her conversation with Clint the day he'd taken her to the museum to see the Captain America exhibit. "_You mean to say that Hydra is still out there?"_ she had asked. _"We don't know. If their technology is still out there then we have to assume that there might still be someone out there who still supports their ideals."_

That was a frightening thought.

"I don't want to think so but just because Red Skull disappeared doesn't mean Hydra did. I didn't exactly get the chance to stick around and see."

"Hydra had to go further than Schmidt. I'm sure he had a lot of supporters who would have been only too glad to continue his work."

"Like Strucker."

"Tell me about him."

"It was during the war that I first came across him. Baron Wolfgang von Strucker."

"That's quite the name."

"He hailed Hydra right along with Red Skull. He was just as ruthless too. I first met him in 1944 when he was trying his best to take down the Howling Commandos. He was ruthless and unlike Red Skull he didn't mind getting his hands dirty. Red Skull had Zola to perform his experiments, but Strucker liked to experiment with his own hands. He had this weapon he used – an extension of the arm he was missing – that had an electrical charge to it. He attacked the Commandos while we were trying to free a village at the base of the Alps…."

**1944**

Steve turned to survey his surroundings. The snow flurried around him in torrents, clinging to his eyelashes. Bucky came up beside him, snow dotting his dark hair and melting into rivulets down his cheeks. He gave Steve a grim look. "Are you sure you dragged us out here for a reason?"

"Coordinates indicate that Hydra took over a small village on the outskirts of the Alps. I'm not sure why they're interested in this village. I guess we'll find out."

The Howling Commandos followed them as they forged their way through the snow. Howard Stark had flown them in as close as he could get without alerting Hydra to their presence. They'd taken down a fair share of Hydra bases over the past year, and Steve didn't have any reason to suspect this would be any different. As they rounded on the village, Steve motioned for the Howling Commandos to spread out in the trees surrounding the base of the mountains. Bucky joined him behind an outcropping of rocks. He pulled out a set of binoculars and handed them over to Steve. "What do you see?" he asked.

Steve focused the binoculars on the village in the distance. It was hard to see through the snow, but he was able to perceive the outlines of buildings along with the distinctive sign of Hydra. Soldiers lined the edge of the village, Hydra weapons in hand. "Hydra is there guarding the perimeter. I can't see any further because of the snow."

"I thought they improved your vision before you came to war," Bucky said, his tone edged with teasing.

"Yeah, well they didn't give me the power to control the weather, so we're going to have to make due." They joined the rest of the Howling Commandos and Steve outlined the plan. "Alright, we need to take them from all sides. Hydra will try to use the villagers to their advantage if there are any left here. Civilian protection is priority. Now we don't know how many Hydra soldiers are down there or why they're down there so tread carefully. Dugan and Jones, you take the northern side. Morita and Dernier and Falsworth the west. Bucky and I will take the south. Wait for my signal."

They nodded and moved out, disappearing into the snowfall. Bucky stuck close to Steve's side as they moved toward the southern entrance to the village. The road led straight up to the village. Even though Steve could hardly see through all the snow, he was glad for the cover especially when he heard a truck rumbling toward the village. He motioned for Bucky to drop. His friend did so at once but gave Steve a disgusted look as the snow soaked through their clothing. Steve gave him a shrug from where he lay a few inches away. The truck slowly rumbled into view, and Bucky's face registered why Steve had told him to drop.

"I thought we were making snow angels," he teased softly, rolling his pale blue eyes at Steve.

"No time for that." Steve flashed him a grin. "Maybe after the war."

"Sure."

They fell silent as the truck passed. The Hydra guards went forward to meet it, speaking with the driver for a second before waving him through. The truck drove straight into the village, vanishing into the winter fog.

"Come on." Steve motioned Bucky forward and they leapt up from the snowy ground. Steve could feel the chill working its way through his suit. He readjusted his shield on his left arm, keeping his eyes on the Hydra guards. They worked their way down the incline, and he motioned for Bucky to sneak behind while he met them head on. Bucky tipped his head to the side but nodded moving silently away. Steve gave a sharp whistle. Before the Hydra soldiers could figure out where the sound had come from, Steve and Bucky were on them. Steve's shield crashed down on a Hydra guard's head. He spun around to knock a gun out of another's hand. Bucky used his rifle to knock out the other two guards. They heard shouting from inside the village, but the Howling Commandos had it well under hand. Steve and Bucky ran to join them in the center of the village. Steve saw people peering out of the windows of the small houses. They looked terrified even though the Howling Commandos had knocked out all of the Hydra guards. Dugan and the others helped pull them into the center of the village where they stood around them, weapons aimed just in case any of them woke up. Steve and Bucky worked their way toward the east of the village where the houses ended and the mountain started. Built into the side of the mountain was what looked like a temple. Hydra banners hung across the front of the building. Steve and Bucky exchanged a look before striding toward it. Steve didn't know what to expect but what they found when they entered the building was a shock. Equipment lined the walls and villagers lay strapped to cots some with wires sticking out of their arms. Hydra scientists turned to survey Steve and Bucky. One of them scurried into another room.

"What is this?" Steve asked aloud.

"They're experimenting on them," Bucky said, his voice strained. Steve looked over and saw hooded fear in his eyes. He reached out and put a hand on his friend's shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

Across the room another man entered. He was dressed in a lab coat but had the bearing of someone in charge. One of his hands was missing from the elbow down and had been replaced by a metal hand. A monocle was positioned over one eye.

"I see we have some unwelcome guests," he said, striding forward. "We are in the middle of some very important discoveries. Perhaps you could come back another time."

"That's not going to happen. You need to let these people go. We took your guards down. You have nowhere else to go. Let's make this easy."

The man chuckled softly. "Oh, I don't think I'll be going anywhere, Captain."

"How do you know who I am?"

"The costume? The red, white, and blue shield?" The man lifted an eyebrow. "All of Hydra knows who you are. I hope you don't think you intimidate me." He flexed his metal arm and sparks rose along the surface until the entire arm was letting off an electrical charge. He took a step toward Steve and Bucky.

"Who are you?" Steve asked.

"Baron Wolfgang von Strucker," the man replied as if everyone should have heard of him. The Hydra scientists behind them were hurrying to pack up papers and folders, fear etched on their faces. Bucky gave Steve an uncertain look. Strucker didn't look like much of a fighter, but as they watched, he pulled a long saber out of a sheath, tossing his lab coat aside.

"This research is important. I will not have you destroying it."

"You got this?" Bucky asked. "I'll get the villagers out of here."

"Go," Steve said. "I've got it." He faced Strucker wondering exactly how skilled he was with his saber. He held it his metal hand, and the electrical charge ignited the blade as well. Steve sidestepped cautiously, keeping his eyes on Strucker, waiting for him to strike. Strucker seemed intent on studying him first though.

"Such an interesting specimen you are, Captain. One of a kind. Well, perhaps not _one_ of a kind."

"I'm not a specimen," Steve ground out.

"Do you prefer 'experiment'?"

"I'd prefer less talking."

"Ah yes, always the soldier. Ready to jump into battle for his country." Across the room Bucky was releasing the villagers, helping them to their feet. The Hydra scientists didn't make any attempts to stop him. They huddled in the far corner of the temple, sending worried glances at Strucker. Strucker himself paid them no mind. "Well then," Strucker continued. "I shan't disappoint you." He struck so quickly Steve hardly had a chance to avoid the blow. He sidestepped and flung his shield up as Strucker stabbed at him again. There was nothing inexperienced or clumsy about Strucker's fighting. He was obviously very skilled – reminding Steve of Baron Zemo, another swordsman he'd come up against – and graceful as well, providing a certain elegance to their fight. Steve focused, knocking the sword aside and punching out at Strucker. His fist collided with the man's face, but as Strucker flew backward, he grabbed Steve's arm, dropping the sword in the process. An electric current surged through Steve's body, and he cried out, trying to force the metal hand off of him. Strucker let go, and Steve stumbled backward, his body aching from the electric force that had traveled through it.

"Hey!" Bucky shouted. He threw something at Strucker and it hit him in the back, knocking him off kilter. Steve struck out with his shield, and Strucker hit the floor. Strucker reached for his sword. Steve nearly put his foot down on Strucker's arm, but he was afraid of getting shocked again. He watched Strucker warily as he got to his feet.

"Bites, doesn't it?" Strucker asked. "Not as much as losing my arm, but now I have much more use of it."

"You think because you have a metal arm you have the advantage?" Bucky asked. "Think again." He flung himself at Strucker, forcing his metal arm against his own throat. Strucker jolted as the electricity turned against him.

"Bucky!" Steve shouted as his friend collapsed on the ground, sparks fizzing off his fingertips. Strucker fell to his knees.

"I'm fine," Bucky waved Steve off. "Finish him."

Steve hesitated, conflicted, but he knew he needed to press his advantage. He turned to Strucker and kicked out straight at his chin sending him flying backwards. A punch to the face, and Strucker was out cold, his electrical arm fizzing harmlessly next to him. Steve immediately hurried over to Bucky, crouching down next to him.

"Are you alright?" he asked. "That was a stupid thing to do," he scolded Bucky without giving him a chance to reply.

Bucky groaned, struggling to sit up. Steve placed a hand on his back to help him up. "You're welcome."

"I had him on the ropes."

Bucky grinned. "I know you did."

"Let's strap him down before we join the others." He helped Bucky to his feet and the two of them pulled Strucker up onto one of the cots, carefully avoiding his electrified arm. Bucky tightened the straps around his non-metal arm and legs, face grim. Steve knew he must be remembering his time strapped down by Zola. Anger heated his face. He looked over and saw one of the patients that Bucky hadn't unstrapped from her cot. Steve realized why at once. The patient was dead, a trickle of blood running out of the corner of her mouth. She looked young, perhaps not even twenty yet. Ugly stitching ran down the collar of her thin dress. Steve pulled a white sheet over her head.

"Horrible, isn't it?" Bucky asked. He'd moved alongside Steve, blue eyes clouded with disgust and sorrow.

"I don't understand such disregard for human life," Steve agreed. "Were there any others who were…gone?"

"No. Some weren't in good shape, but they should be all right now that Hydra's done for. I sent the scientists packing. The Commandos should have them now."

"We'll transport them back to the Allies in the truck that came in. I imagine Colonel Phillips will be glad to get his hands on Strucker." They left him strapped down to the cot, still unconscious and made their way outside where they found the Howling Commandos already ordering the Hydra soldiers and scientists onto the truck.

"You alright?" Dugan asked, striding up.

"Yeah, we're okay," Steve replied. Bucky rolled his shoulders, but gave Steve a stiff smile. "We've got their leader in there. Nasty guy with a metal arm – an _electrical_ metal arm."

"Well we'll see how he likes it when we throw a bucket of water on him," Dugan said. "I'll go get him."

"I'll help." Steve followed Dugan back into the building. Bucky stayed behind to help the others.

"Where did you leave him?" Dugan asked, turning to Steve. Steve looked over his shoulder. The cot was empty, restraints loose on the floor. Strucker had escaped.

**Present**

"So he got away? Did you ever come across him again?" Aspen asked as Steve finished his story.

"Once, but it wasn't for long. I never fought him again."

"He sounds like a nasty piece of work."

"Yeah, he was." Steve kept his eyes on the road, but Aspen could see that he was deeply worried. "I don't know if he's still alive, but after Zemo, well, I'd be stupid not to consider it a possibility. I want to make sure he never experiments on anyone else again."

"We're going to figure this out," Aspen assured him. "For now let's get back to DC, and we can look further into Strucker, find connections, figure out what to do next."

"If he's anything like the rest of Hydra, he'll carry a grudge," Steve said. "Let's just hope we find him first."


	5. The Infiltrator

**The Infiltrator**

**June 1, 2011**

Agent Clint Barton surveyed the scene before him with veiled interest. It wasn't everyday he had to investigate a mysterious hammer that had fallen, supposedly, from the sky. The crater in the desert ground was evidence of this though. The next unbelievable part of this whole scenario was the fact that no one seemed to be able to budge the hammer and it was not for lack of trying. He'd been here for over an hour watching person after person try to wrest the hammer from its position on the ground. But to no avail. The crowd kept getting bigger as news spread of the phenomenon, and he inwardly groaned. It made his job a lot harder when civilians got in the way. There was no telling what exactly that hammer could do or why it had fallen in this location. SHIELD was waiting for his observations. He scanned the crowd, focusing his attention on the people rather than the hammer. He would bet anything that there was another interested party out there. His eyes snagged on a young girl leaned up against a black Audi with Arizona plates. She had been watching for approximately the same time as he had and had made a phone call a few minutes before. She'd sensed him looking at him a few times but had not made any attempts to speak to him. Now as she clicked a few photos of the hammer on her phone, Clint turned and entered the black SHIELD van he had arrived in. He called Coulson and told him what he knew.

"There are a lot of people fooling around trying to pick it up. So far no one has been able to. Not sure why."

"We're coming in," Coulson told him. "We'll clear the site and secure it. We need to know what this hammer is and why it landed in the middle of the desert."

"Yes sir."

It took Coulson and his team a couple of hours to arrive, but as Clint jumped out of the van, he saw the black SHIELD cars pulling up at the site. Coulson stepped out of one of the cars and spoke into a walkie talkie.

It didn't take long to clear the site of all civilians once SHIELD pulled in. At the sight of the black government cars, most of the people got into their cars and drove away. The girl Clint had observed earlier left as well, and he wondered if he had been wrong about her. His instincts were hardly ever off though. He had a feeling he would be seeing her again. He stepped forward to greet Coulson.

"Barton," the other agent greeted him.

"Any idea what we're dealing with?" Clint asked, nodding toward the hammer.

"Not a clue," Coulson replied. "But I hope to find out."

Clint knew that Coulson was crazy for anything historical and as they took a closer look at the hammer, Clint saw that it had Scandinavian markings inlaid in the metal. He wondered if it was some sort of ancient relic.

"Any other interested parties?" Coulson asked.

"Mostly locals, but there was one girl who stood out. Arizona plates."

"Think she'll try to come back?"

"Possibly."

"Good. You can question her then. If you get the chance, get a tracking device on her. She'll lead us back to whom she works for. We want to make sure we don't have any trouble."

"Yes, sir."

Coulson had his crew start setting up. They would work around the hammer if they couldn't move it. Clint watched Coulson run his hand down the handle of the hammer, but he didn't try to lift it. Clint decided to do what he did best and found somewhere to perch on the rim of the crater, watching as the SHIELD agents set up their make-shift research facility.

…

He had expected her to come at night, the girl who'd been trying hard not to stand out earlier that day. He didn't know who she worked for, but no one slipped past him and she _nearly_ had. That she'd made it as far as she had was impressive but it was time to end this little game. Clint brought a gun to the girl's temple as she observed the scene at the bottom of the crater. She hadn't heard him come up behind her but she stiffened the second the cold tip of the gun met with her skin.

"Don't move," he told her. "I'm going to count to three, and you're going to stand. Reach for a weapon, and I shoot." She nodded to show she understood, and he started counting. "One. Two. Three." She got slowly to her feet, putting her hands out to the side. Clint kept the gun pressed against her temple as he relieved her of her weapons. Two dart guns and a knife. He shoved them in his pocket wondering just who she was. Not many agents he knew – SHIELD or otherwise – carried around dart guns. That told him that she didn't like casualties either by choice or by order. She'd clearly had some training if she'd snuck past the perimeter guards.

"Alright," he told her. "Turn around and face me." She turned, her green eyes visible even in the darkness. "Who are you?" he asked. "Who do you work for?"

"I could ask you the same question," she said, her voice giving away no hint of fear. Most people would show more emotion at having a gun pressed to their head. She didn't blink because she knew he wouldn't shoot her.

"Except I'm the one who caught you snooping around our set up. You don't get to ask the questions," he told her.

"Just because you have a gun pointed at my head doesn't mean I'll answer your questions," she said, tipping her head to one side. "I don't see why I should if I have no idea who you are."

She was testing him now, and Clint had to admire her technique. Let her play her little game. As they stood there in the darkness something cold and wet hit Clint on the top of the head and then his cheek. It began to rain, thunder rumbling somewhere to the west.

"Can we at least go somewhere dry if you're insistent on interrogating me?" the girl asked. Clint wasn't too keen on getting soaked so he jerked his gun toward the SHIELD van parked a few feet away.

"In there," he told her, pointing to the van. "You go first. Don't try to run, I'm a good shot." Instead of showing any signs of anxiety, she sighed, striding toward the van with no complaint and sliding in. He followed her, gun still aimed at the back of her head. He shut the van door behind him and turned to survey the infiltrator.

She had to be no older than twenty though she could have pulled off younger with her pale face and innocent looking eyes. Her red hair was a striking contrast to her pale skin. If he hadn't just caught her trying to infiltrate the SHIELD base with two dart guns and a knife, he wouldn't suspect her of working for an organization from looks alone – except the scar that ran from her eye partway down her cheek. It was faded as if she had received it some years before, but it still stood out. He wondered how she got it. Another sign that she wasn't just an average girl was how shrewd her eyes were. In that moment he knew that she was sizing him up just as he was observing her.

"Have a seat," he told her, motioning to a swivel chair that sat across from him. She sat, wiping her rain-dampened hands on her jeans. He pulled the knife and dart guns from his pocket and set them down behind him. The girl simply cocked her head, waiting for him to speak. Clint sat down across from her, setting the gun on his lap. If she tried anything he could have it up in a second, but his thoughts flitted back to the dart guns, and he knew she wouldn't try to hurt him.

"How about we start with your name."

"Will you tell me yours if I tell you mine?" she asked. Why was everything coming out of her mouth a question and not an answer?

Clint sighed, trying to keep his impatience in check. "Fine."

"Aspen," she replied promptly.

"Aspen what?"

"Why do you need to know?" Another question, one he decided not to answer. "What about your name?" she asked a second later.

"Last name first." If he could at least pry her whole name out of her, he'd have accomplished something.

She sighed again. "Fine, Tolvar."

"Barton," he offered her.

"Is that your first or last name?" she asked him.

"It's all you get." She frowned at this, but Clint moved onto the next subject. "I saw you earlier."

"I thought I'd check out the thing that everyone was so excited about. I got curious after you guys showed up."

"So you're just a curious tourist armed with two dart guns and a knife?" He picked up one of the dart guns to study it closer. It wasn't some cheap weapon that anyone could get their hands on. This was something the professionals used. While he inspected the gun he slid a small tracking device on the side so quickly that the girl wouldn't notice. "These are advanced," he said aloud. "Not the kind of thing you could buy at Cabela's."

"Well unless you plan on torturing me to find out any more, I don't see any reason why I should keep talking."

She spoke of torture casually, and he would bet whomever she worked for had puffed up her confidence until she thought she was near invincible. He would say she'd never felt pain, never been threatened, but the scar below her eye said otherwise. She still brushed it off with practiced skill.

"Who do you work for?" Clint asked her.

"What makes you think I work for anyone? It's a free country."

"You're just a foot soldier," Clint said. "You're not working on your own." Someone had given her those guns and someone had given her that scar.

She sent him a glare. "How would you know that?"

"Trust me. I know the look of someone who's taking orders. You made a call when you were here earlier. Was it to your boss? Why is he interested in the hammer?"

"Why wouldn't someone be interested in something like that?" she countered.

"Either he wants it for money or to study it. Which is it?" She narrowed her eyes, and he knew he'd hit close to the mark.

"Why are _you_ keeping it? It's not yours. Unless you're secretly a battle dwarf out of Middle Earth." She scanned him. "Nope, too tall."

Clint resisted the urge to let his eye twitch. He was getting too old to be patient with teenagers. "I'm asking the questions. Look, it takes a lot more than a curious reporter to slip past our guards. Clearly you're highly trained. You're either trying to steal it so that your boss can study it or you're trying to steal it so that he can sell it to the highest bidder. We can do this all night."

"What does it matter?" she asked, deflating a little. "I don't have any way to get it. Cleary it's impossible to lift for some strange reason as we saw earlier."

Clint didn't mean to sigh, but his frustration was slipping out. Time to break some of that cockiness and show her who had the upper hand. "Look Tolvar, either you start talking or we do this the hard way and I detain you and keep you locked up until you tell us what your MO is."

The girl clamped her lips together stubbornly, and Clint furrowed his brows in frustration. Clearly he was going to get nowhere with her if he started giving her orders. Before he had the chance to speak further, his headset buzzed to life and Coulson's voice came on the line.

"Barton, we need you. We've got a perimeter breach, and he's plowing through our agents like they're paper dolls."

"I'm on it," Clint replied. He turned to the girl. "We'll finish this later, but we _will _finish this." He grabbed a set of handcuffs from a drawer. The girl rolled her eyes, but he cuffed her to the chair. "Don't move." He put a hand on a rifle but then his hands slid to his trusty recurve bow. He snapped it straight and opened the door to the van, leaping out onto the now muddy ground and running toward a lift that would give him a bird's eye view of the scene.

…

"Did she escape?" Agent Coulson asked Agent Clint Barton after the mysterious blonde intruder had been contained and given an initial interrogation.

"Yes, sir, she took her dart guns back, so the tracking device should be active."

"Good. We need to find out who she's working for. You said her name was Tolvar?"

"That's what she told me. I'm not sure if she was telling the truth. Stubborn thing." In truth she reminded him of Natasha with her red hair and spunk.

"The name sounds familiar," Coulson said thoughtfully. "I'll look into it after I finish up with our guest. Track her back to wherever she came from. Take her in if you need to. I'll be in touch."

"Yes, sir."

…

The girl stopped at a hotel in a small town outside of Puente Antiguo, but she didn't stay for long. Clint watched from his car as she rushed out of the room she had rented, getting into her car and taking off. He waited a few minutes before following, his GPS tracking her. Something had got her scared. She was either running from something or hurrying to get back to something.

Coulson called him halfway through the night. "Sir?"

"Aspen Tolvar is daughter to the famous scientists Ava and Gregor Tolvar who were working on a brain stimulant serum. They died in 1994 in an explosion. They were SHIELD for a few years. She's lived with her aunt in Arizona ever since. Her aunt was SHIELD too for awhile until her sister and brother-in-law died."

"So why would the girl be interested in this hammer?" Clint asked. "She's not SHIELD."

"That's not all. Two years ago Tolvar started working for an organization called ARTIFACT." Clint cursed. He'd faced several ARTIFACT agents during his time at SHIELD. "As you know, they acquire dangerous items of questionable origin by whatever means possible. She's a smuggler, Barton. From what I could gather, Joseph Danners, head of the organization, took her under his wing. He knew her parents. Whatever reason he took her in, it wasn't charity. I have a feeling he thinks Aspen might have some valuable information concerning her parents' research whether she's aware of it or not. Aspen's parents worked with Danners before he went criminal. He's aware of their research. They started working for us to get protection. They feared what Danners might do if he got his hands on their work. Work with that angle. Danners used to be in the military armor business until he sold up and went underground. He's on SHIELD's top enemy list only he's been impossible to touch. This might be our chance. Follow her and send for reinforcement once you find out if she's headed toward ARTIFACT headquarters."

"You still want me to take her in?" Clint asked.

Coulson was quiet for a minute. "She's just a kid way in over her head. Give her a chance."

"Offer her a job?"

"I'll let that be your call. She has a three year contract with ARTIFACT, but I have a feeling Danners isn't going to let her just go. We might be the only ones who can protect her. Also, one more thing. Find Danners's office and find me a file. It'll be somewhere close to his desk. It will be labeled…" He read off the name, and Clint nodded. "Be careful, he knows all about SHIELD. He's been hiding from us for years."

"Yes, sir."

After Coulson hung up, Clint found himself thinking about the girl as a SHIELD agent. He had to admit he could see it. She had some skill and she wasn't tied down to ARTIFACT emotionally other than the connection to her parents as far as he could see. But her parents had been SHIELD too. Clint had the feeling that Danners wouldn't make any sacrifices for her.

It was a long drive but when it ended, he found himself in Phoenix, Arizona. The girl's plates had been from that county, so he assumed that was where she worked. She ended up at a two-story house where she spent fifteen minutes before appearing again. She looked harried and got into her car quickly. He followed her to an apartment building where she went in and did not come out again. He saw a light go on in a second story apartment and saw movement behind the curtains. Eventually the light went off, and he assumed she had gone to bed (they had been driving all night after all). As soon as she set foot outside again, they were going to have a nice long chat.

…

He managed to doze off for a few hours, waking when a garbage truck went by on the street. He got out of his car and stretched his arms. He noticed that the light was back on in the girl's apartment and strode over to her Audi to wait for her. It took her ten minutes to come outside and head toward her car. She stopped short when she saw him, surprise widening her green eyes.

"Oh," was all she said.

"You took something that didn't belong to you," he said. A file had gone missing from his van – some of Jane Foster's work that Coulson had confiscated. He didn't think it was important – they had copies, but he also didn't want it falling into the wrong hands. "And I think I know who you are now," he continued.

"Oh?" she asked.

"A smuggler. You steal things for your boss and he sells them to the highest bidder. We're aware of such organizations out there, you know."

"Well, he's aware of you too," the girl replied, looking unfazed.

"I would hope so. We're his worst nightmare."

"Well he has the folder, and I can't get it back, so you're out of luck," she said. Clint could tell she was lying.

"The file belonged to Doctor Jane Foster, but we have copies of the documents," he told her, shrugging it off.

"Then why are you here?"

"I'm here to offer you a deal," he said. She had potential; he had seen it right away. He also knew when someone's heart wasn't in a job. She would have reported in right away if she was deeply entrenched in ARTIFACT. Instead she'd gone to speak with someone – a relative? – and got some sleep. She didn't seem overly frightened of Clint or SHIELD.

"What kind of deal?" she asked.

"My agency sent me to get you out of our hair," he told her, gauging her reaction.

"To kill me?" She lifted an eyebrow.

Clint shrugged. "They made it my call. But no, I don't typically knock off teenagers who pilfer."

She glared at him. "So what are you going to do?"

"I told you. I'm going to make you an offer. You come work for us. Use your skills for a better purpose." He had a feeling Coulson would like the girl. She was spunky.

"I don't even know who you work for. How am I supposed to know that my skills would be going to a better purpose?" she asked.

"You think your boss has a good purpose for those things he has you steal?" Clint asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"All I know is that the people we're taking them from definitely do not have good intentions. We're keeping them safe. It's not my job to judge or ask questions."

"No, you're just a smuggler." He was baiting her, and it worked.

"I'm a damn good one," she said defensively, confirming what he already knew.

"We have your file, Aspen," he said, using her first name. "And we know all about Joseph Danners and ARTIFACT. I could tell you stories about him that would curl your hair." Okay, maybe not, but he knew Danners was shady.

Aspen frowned. "My parents worked for him. They wouldn't have worked for a criminal." Her voice lacked conviction, and he knew he had her.

"Ava and Gregor Tolvar? They worked for us," he said. "Danners double-crossed them. He's bluffing if he said differently. He wants something from you."

"What? How did he double-cross them? He said they were friends." She had let her guard down now, her voice giving away her doubt.

"And you believed him? He thinks you have knowledge of what they were working on before they died. He wants that information. Whatever he told you about them was most likely a lie." A serum like that or at least hard-copies of research would sell for a very high price.

"I was three when they died. What would I know?"

"He thinks your parents might have hidden their work with you somehow." Somewhat of a guess, but it made sense.

"Well I don't have it." He couldn't tell if she was lying or telling the truth.

"We can keep you safe. Believe me. Danners is just going to use you. He's not going to let you out of your contract. Not until he gets what he wants, and we don't want that."

"How can I trust you?" she asked accusingly. "I don't even know who you are or who you work for."

"You can't. I won't make any promises, but I can tell you that I believe we do the right thing. ARTIFACT doesn't."

Aspen shut her eyes, thinking it over. He could tell she was considering it. She looked at hm. "Will you give me a chance to think about it?" she asked. There was fear and uncertainty written across her face. She needed proof of Danners's treachery before she believed him fully. Clint sighed inwardly. This could not end well. If Danners knew she'd spoken to SHIELD he wouldn't hesitate to get rid of Aspen.

"I can give you that but if you tell Danners any of this, the deal's off. Then I _will_ have to take you in."

"I won't tell him anything." Again he couldn't tell if she was lying.

"Think about it, Tolvar," he said. "I'll be waiting here at nine tonight." In the mean time he was going to follow her straight to ARTIFACT headquarters. She might be well trained to be a smuggler, but she was making a lot of rookie mistakes.

"I'll let you know then." He pushed off from her car and gave her a grim smile before leaving. Movement across the street made him turn his head. A man was quickly getting into a car, driving away down the street. Clint frowned. He had a bad feeling that someone from ARTIFACT had just seen him speaking to Aspen. He cursed himself for not being more careful then again, how was he supposed to know that ARTIFACT would be watching her home. Nothing he could do about it now.

He gave Aspen a head start before following. The tracker was still active, and he smiled at how easy this was. He realized he was already planning out what he would do first to train her but that was assuming she agreed to join SHIELD and that he got assigned as her SO. He liked her. Last night it might have been painful to admit, but she'd had a rough life like him. She deserved a second shot at life.

He parked a mile away once the tracker stopped moving. The walk through the dry desert wasn't ideal, but in the end it was well worth it. A huge factory building rose up before him surrounded by a tall, electrified fence. ARTIFACT headquarters. He called up SHIELD and gave them his coordinates before moving in. He found a weak spot at the side of the building where the security cameras didn't focus in and the guards ignored. In the middle of nowhere, they had the illusion of safety. Clearly they'd never met Hawkeye. Once he'd bypassed the gate, he set to placing detonators outside. It would give him and Aspen the perfect distraction to escape the building if everything played out the way he hoped it would.

He gripped his bow and aimed a specialized arrow at the top of the building. It turned into a grappling hook and he climbed up to the roof. It took a few moments to find the door leading into the building. The girl's signal was coming from the basement. He wondered what she was doing down there. Something about it raised his suspicions. He found the stairs and took them down to the very bottom of the building. He readied his bow but there was no one in the basement. Locked glass doors barred his way. He rattled the door. He could break the glass but he had a feeling that would trigger an alarm. A sickly sweet smell was coming from inside the room, and Aspen's signal was strong. She was somewhere in there, and if he didn't get to her soon, she might be dead. He glanced up and found a vent. An exploding tipped arrow made short order of the grate, and he pulled himself in. It was tight, but wide enough for him to crawl. He went as quickly as he could go, winding around the room until he was behind it. He saw the girl below. She looked ready to pass out. He turned his body in the tight space and kicked the bars as hard as he could until the metal grate flew open. Pulling his shirt over his nose, he dropped down into the room and grabbed the girl. From somewhere up above a jolt made the building rumble. His distractions were working.

"Hey, I gotcha. You're gonna be alright," he said to Aspen. Her eyes shut as she lost consciousness, and he knew he had limited time. He realized it would be impossible to go back through the vents with her. Alarms be damned. He shot another exploding arrow at the glass door and another until it shattered. Grabbing Aspen in his arms, he ran with her up to the next floor where the air was fresh. He didn't have time to wait for Aspen to wake up on her own, so he gave her a sharp slap to the face. Her eyes shot open. "You!" she accused.

He smiled grimly. "Me. I just saved you down there, so you might want to be grateful."

"Danners is trying to kill me," Aspen said, her voice weak. "I was so stupid. My aunt warned me…" She put her face in her hands. "Why?"

"Danners is evil. You don't know enough to scratch the surface of ARTIFACT, just the lies he's fed you. Danners has always been after your parents' work. I tried to tell you. Danners realized that you were going to figure it out sooner or later. You might be naïve, but you're not dumb. He knows that."

"How did you know to follow? I thought we were meeting tonight."

"I thought he might try to pull something like this. I realized after you left that we'd been seen talking. Danners knows all about SHIELD. He wouldn't want to risk you giving away ARTIFACT's secrets if you agreed to join." Another jolt rocked the building. "We need to get you out of here. I set off some detonators outside to keep them busy. I need to get something out of Danners's office before we go."

"What?" She looked up at him curiously.

"Classified, sorry," he said, shrugging. He stood and held out a hand, hauling her to her feet. "If you join my organization, I might reconsider."

"After this, I'm done with ARTIFACT." He was glad to hear it.

"Deal. Where's his office?" he asked.

"This way." Aspen led him through the hallways occasionally passing ARTIFACT employees. No one seemed too concerned with either Clint or Aspen though. They seemed to be running away from something which didn't bode well. When they reached the office, Aspen hesitated outside the door. Clint lifted his gun and nodded for her to open it. She took a deep breath and swung it open.

The office was empty when they entered. Aspen closed the doors behind them and Clint said, "Keep a look out," while be began shuffling through the papers in Danners's desk. "Got it," Clint said, tucking a folder into his jacket.

"My parents' work?" Aspen asked looking hopeful.

"He has it?" That was not good.

"Someone stole it from my aunt. She thought the people worked for Danners. I should have listened to her…"

"No time for regret. If Danners has it then that's bad, but right now we need to get out of here. I called for backup, but right now my priority is getting you to safety." He urged Aspen toward the window.

The sound of shattering glass stopped them. "What was that?" Aspen asked.

"They're taking down the building. They know they've been compromised. SHIELD will be swarming this place when they get here." He went over to one of the windows and kicked out the glass until the hole was big enough to fit through.

"We're six stories up, are you crazy?" Aspen asked, giving him a wide-eyed look.

Clint shook his head, pulling his bow off his back. "Not crazy. This is the fastest way out." He notched an arrow and motioned for her to come over. He aimed at the outside of the building adjacent to them and shot. The arrow transformed, turning into an anchor and attaching itself to the wall. A thin line ran back to the bow. Clint attached the end of the line to the ceiling using a similar anchor.

"We do this together," he said, holding out an arm. Aspen came over to him, and he wrapped his arm around her waist. She put her arm around his shoulder, looking worried. He hooked the bow around the fine wire so that they could glide down to the ground.

"Is that wire strong enough for both of us?" Aspen asked nervously.

"It'll hold a lot more weight than the both of us," he assured her. "Hold on." They stepped up onto the windowsill and then jumped. Aspen threw her other arm around Clint as they streaked downward, holding on for dear life. When they were close to the ground, Clint unhooked his bow and they landed hard, rolling to their feet.

"My car," Aspen said. They sprinted toward it across the parking lot, but before they could get too far, gun shots rang out. They dove behind the black sedan nearest to them. "Great, now they're shooting at us." Aspen peered out from behind the car. "Can we make it?" she asked.

Clint found her car. It was across the lot, but fortunately for them there were a lot of cars to shield themselves behind on the way there. "In steps," he said. "One car at a time." He readied himself, tightening his grip on his bow. "Ready?"

She gave him a curt nod. Then they ran for it, diving behind the next car as a shower of ammo came flying after them. One hit the tire and the car sunk a little lower. "Do you do this a lot?" Aspen asked, glancing over at Clint. He shrugged.

"It's kind of part of my job," he told her. "And ARTIFACT definitely hates SHIELD."

"What is your job exactly?"

"If I told you, I'd have to kill you."

"I said I'd join your organization and besides, you promised you wouldn't kill me," she said. A bullet ricocheted off the car next to them. "Although they might do the job for you."

"Next car." They ran for it, ducking down.

"This isn't as easy as it looks in the movies," Aspen said. There was pain in her voice, and Clint looked down to see that a bullet had grazed her arm. Her shirtsleeve was growing red with blood. Her car was close now. As long as they didn't get hit again, they'd make it.

"One more run," Clint told her. "Ready?" He glanced at her bleeding arm again.

"Ready." They ran in unison, Aspen clicking the automatic lock button on her keys and Clint flinging himself into the passenger side. Aspen revved the engine and tore out of the lot. Gunshots followed them, bouncing off the side of the car. She sped toward the gates. "They're closed!"

"Hang on." Clint rolled down the window and stuck his bow out. He had to lean half his body out of the car to draw back, but he managed to notch an arrow. He shot it straight at the middle of the metal gates. As soon as the arrow hit its mark, the gates exploded, flying off their hinges. They were still in the air when Aspen's Audi streaked through the now unhindered entrance. Clint pulled himself and his bow back into the car and shut the window. Several ARTIFACT SUVs were pursing them, Clint noticed as he looked back. ARTIFACT headquarters was now in flames and the ARTIFACT employees were making a run for it. A moment later the building exploded. The rubble was flung into the road, and Aspen jerked the wheel to avoid it. There wasn't going to be anything left at this rate. SHIELD would be lucky to get anything on ARTIFACT besides burnt up filing cabinets and melted computers.

"My aunt!" Aspen cried out suddenly.

"No time to get her, we're being followed," Clint told her.

"We need to get her! Danners will hurt her if we don't. I don't trust his promises anymore."

"At least you learned something. They'll know you're going there though. There might be someone waiting."

"I don't care! She's family," Aspen half shouted.

Clint frowned and then gave a curt nod. "If you're fast, and I mean_ fast_, I can cover you while you get her."

"I'll be fast." She sped down the desert road, slowing only when she reached the city. The SUVs following them had fallen back in the lunch hour traffic, but they weren't going to lose them. Aspen screeched to a halt in front of the house Clint had seen her enter the night before and leapt out of the car. Clint moved over to the driver's side, pulling out a gun and rolling down the window. He could shoot out the tires if the SUVs got there before Aspen and her aunt got out.

Aspen left the house a second later though, her aunt nowhere in sight. "Go!" she said, flinging herself into the car. The SUVs turned the corner as she shut the door

Clint stepped on the gas, and they were speeding away, the SUVs in hot pursuit. "She wasn't there?" he asked. Aspen looked upset.

"She was gone but she left a note. She told me to get to safety and that she could take care of herself."

"She can, you know." If she'd worked for SHIELD, she'd know how to go on the run. He peered in the rearview mirror. To his surprise the SUVs had stopped chasing them.

"Why does everyone seem to know more about my family than I do?" Aspen asked with a laugh that verged on hysterical.

"Because you've been protected your entire life. That isn't a bad thing."

"It feels like it. I feel like I have no idea of who I am or who my parents were."

"Well that's about to change because I'm not ever going to lie to you, Aspen," Clint assured her. "SHIELD is alright. They gave me a second chance when I needed it. You made the right choice."

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"New York," Clint told her. "Welcome to SHIELD."


	6. Unexpected Detour

**Author's Note: **I know it's been AGES since I updated in this, but I wanted to give you _A Game of Winter, _but now that's done being written, so I have no excuses. So if you have forgotten stuff, don't worry, I have too. I had to go back and reread half of this to remember what the heck had happened. Basically Aspen and Steve are trying to find Strucker. They're in Germany. He's told Aspen about his past meetings with Strucker. Aspen is still wearing her cuff bracelet that takes away her powers because she is still afraid of her powers. Yeah. So things get fun from here. I finally thought up a dandy plot. I will work on finishing this story before I post any other new stories. I'll keep adding in some shorts here and there. If there is any short you are particularly interested in reading, let me know! (i.e. ...) I can't even think of anything. That's bad. Whatever, I'll keep thinking. Basically just something I can write in a chapter - some character interactions you want to see or a certain moment from a different pov. It can be in the 40s or modern times. Just as long as it revolves around my main characters (Steve, Aspen, Clint, Loki, we can do Peggy and Bucky and Nat too.) I'm sure I'll come up with something amusing. Wow, I rant when I'm tired. Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Unexpected Detour<strong>

**July 21, 2012**

Aspen fell asleep at some point while Steve drove, and it was some time during the early hours of the morning that a voice jarred her awake.

"_I hear you've been looking for me_," a voice blared from the speakers of the car. "_I'm going to give you a chance to meet me._"

Steve hit the brakes so hard that Aspen's seatbelt tightened hard against her chest. She was instantly wide-awake. "Where is that coming from?" she asked.

"_You think I can't find you wherever you are?_" the voice asked.

"I know that voice," Steve said.

"_It's been a long time, Captain,_" the voice continued. "_We left on bad terms, I'm afraid. Come to these coordinates, and we'll get a chance to set things straight._"

The voice cut off and a set of coordinates appeared on the GPS. Aspen stared at them. They indicated a place fifty miles west. "Do we go?" she asked quietly, afraid that the voice was still listening. "Who was that?"

"It was Strucker's voice," Steve told her, tone hard. "I would recognize that voice anywhere."

"It could be a trap."

"Most likely." He didn't make any move to keep driving.

"You want to go still." Aspen could see the glint of determination in Steve's blue eyes.

"You don't have to come. I could take you to the airport-"

"You know me way too well to suggest that," Aspen said. "Come on, let's see what he has to say."

Steve pressed down on the gas and started driving toward the coordinates. Aspen watched the miles go by, wide-awake despite the fact that she had been exhausted a few minutes before. The jarring voice had negated any chances of getting sleep on the remainder of the drive. Steve looked tense, and she could see the memories flitting behind his eyes. Aspen didn't know what to say, didn't know what to expect when they arrived at the mysterious destination. As the miles flew past and the destination got closer, Aspen felt more and more nervous. She didn't feel prepared to face one of Hydra's best, somehow still alive after all these years. She played nervously with the cuff around her wrist wondering if she would need to take it off. She tried to imagine Strucker with his monocle and electric arm. It was a terrifying image, and she shook it from her mind the moment she imagined it.

When they reached their destination, Aspen had worked herself into a ball of nerves. Her hand nervously touched her cuff again. Steve seemed to notice because he took her hand. "You can stay in the car if you want."

"No. I'm coming with you." She got out of the car and Steve followed, shield firmly grasped in his left hand. The sky was light enough for them to traverse the rough ground. "What exactly are we looking for?"

"I don't know. I thought it'd be more obvious," Steve admitted, looking around. Aspen wandered uphill a little. They were very clearly in the middle of nowhere, but on the other side of the hill something caught her eye.

"Steve, come look at this." He joined her and they looked down at what appeared to be a hatch leading underground. "Do we go in?"

"I suppose it's the only place _to_ go." Steve sounded unsure, but he led them forward. The doors were locked, but Steve made short order of that with the edge of his shield.

"It's like they don't want visitors but we _were_ invited," Aspen commented as they entered. Lights flickered on as they moved inward. A tunnel led downward underground, and Aspen couldn't help but feel trapped as they moved further inward. "Are you getting a bad feeling about this?" she asked.

"Well it's not a good feeling," Steve replied.

The tunnel ended abruptly and opened up into a large room. Everything was cement save the intricate looking device in the very center of the room. "_What_ is that?" Aspen asked. Steve didn't reply. He was looking around the room for any signs of Strucker, but it seemed pretty obvious to Aspen that they were alone. She walked closer to the machine trying to figure out exactly what it was. It looked old. The once shiny metal was now tarnished and coated in a thick layer of dust.

"I don't think this place has been touched in years," Aspen said, turning to Steve. His brow was furrowed.

"Then why would Strucker send us here?"

"I don't know." Aspen took another step toward the machine. She stumbled as her foot sunk down. She looked down in surprise. The cement floor shouldn't be sinking underfoot. It was then that she noticed the button built into the floor. She lifted her foot and saw a red button blinking. "Uh oh," she said. "I think I just set something off."

Steve was at her side in a second. The machine before them started making sounds at that moment. "I think we need to get out of here," Steve said.

"I second that." They turned to leave but metal doors slid shut, baring their exit. Steve slammed his shield into them, but they wouldn't budge.

"I don't think I can get through. There has to be another way out." But there wasn't. Everything else was solid cement. The only vents were far too small for either of them to escape through.

The machine continued to make noises and part of it rose up out of the center, lights blinking. They watched it, fearful and unsure of what it was. Then a blinding light hit them, and Aspen covered her eyes. Steve held up his shield against it. The beep was now blaring and Aspen couldn't hear what Steve was trying to tell her above it. The light grew blindingly right, and Aspen's hands in front of her eyes hardly made a difference. Then suddenly the noise died down and the light faded. Aspen lowered her hands and gasped.

She was no longer standing in the cement room but on the side of a road. A car drove past, honking a warning. She backed away, staring after the car. She had no idea where she was, but the car certainly looked out of place. It took a moment for her to realize all the cars looked the same. They looked _old_ to be precise. But they were all shiny and new looking, just outdated. Aspen stepped onto the sidewalk. Nothing looked familiar to her. Two women walked out wearing neat jackets and skirts. Their high heels clicked on the sidewalk. Aspen stared. The woman caught sight of her and stared back. Aspen turned away and started walking. A newspaper box up ahead caught her eye. She hurried forward and pressed her hands against the cover. The date read **November 11, 1940** under the brazen words: _Daily Express_. Aspen blinked a few times, sure her eyes were deceiving her. The headline read: **London Holding Its Breath For Next Air Raids**. A smaller section titled **More Bombings** depicted a map below that showed what places in Europe had been bombed. Aspen stood there for a long time, her heart beating quickly and her breath coming in short gasps. This had to be some sort of joke or dream or _something_ because she couldn't be in 1940.

"Are you okay, Miss?" a woman asked from behind Aspen in a British accent. Aspen whirled around. A woman with neatly bobbed hair was giving her a concerned glance. Am armband around the woman's upper arm reading WVS caught Aspen's eye, but she didn't know what it meant.

"I'm fine. I just…I was just reading the headlines," Aspen said.

"American? What are you doing over here at a time like this?" the woman exclaimed, and Aspen wished she would have faked a British accent.

"Visiting family," she said quickly. "My mother's side of the family lives here."

"It's terrible, isn't it? To have to wait like this for the next round of bombs to drop. We have to go about our lives anyway, but there isn't a day I walk to work when I don't look to the skies." Aspen looked around and saw some of the damage she had missed before. Broken windows, burned out buildings here and there, sandbags in the street.

"It is terrible."

"Are you sure you're okay? You look as if you've taken a turn." The woman frowned a little at Aspen's clothes, and Aspen realized she was dressed completely inappropriately for the time.

"I'll be fine. I actually lost my baggage. Had to borrow some clothes from my cousin. They're all boys I'm afraid, and my aunt is two sizes bigger. Is there somewhere I can buy an inexpensive outfit?" she asked. She just hoped she had some money in her jacket somewhere.

"Oh you poor dear, of course. There's a little place just up the street. It's called Thread and Needle."

"Thank you," Aspen said, giving the woman a smile.

"If you need anything at all, I'm part of the Woman's Voluntary Service. Your aunt will probably have told you all about the precautions."

"Yes, of course. Thank you." Aspen was rusty on her World War II history as far as the Blitz, but she did remember that there had been several different volunteer services that had helped the city through its darkest times. Amid her terror, she felt a tingle of excitement.

She found the crosswalk and hurried toward the clothing store. There were advertisements pinned up about gas masks and there was even a meeting somewhere that evening that would train people how to use them. Everything around her was so foreign. She felt like a circus clown in her modern clothes. She was still processing, worrying about Steve and coming to the realization that she was in _his_ time. Where was he though? She saw no sign of him anywhere around her point of arrival. Her arrival hadn't seemed to have caused a stir so perhaps no one had seen. Had Steve been sent back too? At least he knew how to fit in. But why had she ended up in England?

She remembered her cell phone and pulled it out hoping to text Steve but of course there was no signal. She shoved it back in her pocket and entered Thread and Needle. A well-dressed woman greeted her when she entered, giving her a curious glance. Aspen repeated her made up story and soon had the woman cooing sympathetically at her and picking out a dress. Aspen asked for something simple and practical and the woman handed her a mid-calf length dress in a shade of green that matched Aspen's eyes. It fit fairly well, and Aspen brushed off the woman's offer to measure her for a better fit pleading that she was in a hurry.

She was handed a pair of nylons to go with the dress along with some pumps. She changed behind a curtain, cursing the nylons and the pumps for their impracticality. One glance in the mirror convinced her that she really had gone mad.

"That shade goes wonderfully with your eyes," the woman told her when she pushed aside the curtain. "I have just the sweater to suit it. There's a chill in the air today." She handed Aspen a sweater a hint darker than the green dress. "I haven't sold much since the war started, but I can't say I blame people. There's plenty to worry about besides new clothes."

"Thank you," Aspen told her. "How much do I owe you?"

"Let me just ring it up." The woman stepped behind the counter and began to add up the costs on the most ancient-looking cash register Aspen had ever seen. "That will be six pounds," she said.

Aspen dug around in her coat pocket and pulled out a twenty. "I only have American money," she told the lady hoping beyond hope it would work. "You can keep all of it." She handed it over to the lady who looked down at the bill.

"I'm afraid I'm not up on American currency, but I'm sure it more than covers it. Are you sure I can't get you back some change?"

"No thanks, but could I get a bag for these clothes?" Aspen asked. "I need to return them to my cousin."

"Of course." The woman handed her a back and Aspen quickly shoved her old clothes inside. There was no way she was abandoning her pants. She was already longing for the soft feel of the denim. "Curious material your cousin's shoes were made from," the woman commented. "I couldn't help but notice."

"Oh yes, it's a new type of fabric. He got them overseas," she said vaguely. "They'll be all the rage after the war, I'm sure."

She left the shop before the woman could pry her with any more questions. She went back to the street corner where she'd first arrived, hoping beyond hope that Steve was there somewhere. He wasn't. She was completely alone in a time and a place she knew next to nothing about. Hearing Steve's stories was one thing, but actually being there was the most unexpected detour she'd ever experienced. Inside she was panicking, but she stayed calm on the outside knowing it would do her no good to have a breakdown on the sidewalk. She had no idea where to go or what to do. Clearly the city was preparing for another raid though the people tried to get on as well as they could. She saw no children and realized they must have been evacuated from the city. Suddenly a face caught her eye. A sharply dressed woman was getting into a car across the way. She had dark brown hair in a neat curled bob and wore bright red lipstick. Her eyes met Aspen's for a moment. It was a face Aspen would know anywhere though she had only seen it in pictures.

Peggy Carter was here in London, and suddenly Aspen knew where she needed to go. As the car pulled away from the curb, Aspen saw a taxi and hailed it. "Can you follow that car please?" she asked. "I just saw an old friend, and she didn't see me. I'm afraid I'll miss her."

"American, huh?" the driver asked.

"Yes, now can you please follow the car? I'll pay double." She had no idea what cab fare was, but she had another twenty in her pocket.

"All right, all right." The taxi pulled away and started in pursuit of Peggy's car. Aspen felt her heart pounding crazily. Nothing about this could be described as anything less than surreal.

…

Steve blinked his eyes open and found himself staring up at the sky as well as a number of concerned faces.

"Are you all right, Mister?" a voice asked. The man who had spoken was wearing a suit and tie with a grey fedora. It seemed odd to Steve. No one dressed like that anymore unless they were going to some sort of concert or gala. The women were all wearing dresses and had their hair neatly bobbed. A few of them wore hats as well. Steve blinked a few more times, but they were still there.

"You just kind of collapsed here," another man said. "Well, no one saw you fall, but suddenly there you were."

"I…" Steve tried to sit up. His head was reeling. Strong arms helped him to his feet.

"You from down South?" one of the men asked with a frown, eyeing Steve's jeans.

Steve looked around him, eyes not quite believing what they were seeing. It _was_ familiar, but it shouldn't have been there. "I'm sorry, what's the date?" he asked.

"Why November the eleventh. Haven't you seen the paper?" A man held out his copy of the New York Times for Steve to read. The headline read: **When Will Germany Strike Again? **The date was November 11th as the man had said. Steve's eyes snagged on the year. 1940. His head reeled again. He thought back to the machine. It was the last thing he remembered. His shield was nowhere to be seen, so maybe only he'd been sent back. And Aspen. He looked around.

"Did anyone see a red-headed girl around here?" he asked.

"Plenty. Any particular one you're looking for?" one of the men asked with a chuckle.

"She would have had longer hair and would be dressed similarly to me." Brows furrowed. "We're travelling here from the South like you said. She works a lot on the farm, so she isn't much for dresses." It was the lamest excuse, but the group of people nodded along, taking in his words.

"No, sir, we never saw such a girl," the first man answered him. "You need some money for the phone or anything?"

"No thank you," Steve said. "I should get going. Thank you for your help."

"You going to be okay?"

"I'll be fine. Can I keep this?" Steve asked, indicating the paper.

"Of course." They let him leave and he started down the street feeling aimless. He needed to find Aspen, but he had no idea how to find her. He pulled out his cell but, as expected, it had no signal. He hastily shoved it away when a couple passed him. He'd never expected to find himself back in his own time. He wasn't even sure if this was real or all an elaborate illusion. He would have expected it to feel like home but instead it felt alien like he was out of place. And that scared him. He desperately needed to find Aspen because he felt like he was about to have a panic attack, and if _he _felt out of place then she definitely would. The war was going on somewhere out there, but Captain America had not yet been born. Why would he have been sent back here? What could possibly be so important about this moment in time?

"…back those words!" came a voice suddenly from an alley next to where Steve had been walking. He backtracked and saw a hefty boy a few years younger than him cornering someone. He was about to say something, but he paused. There was something familiar about this alley, about this part of town. The thick boy moved aside, and Steve's eyes widened at the smaller boy getting beat up.

It was him.

Steve moved back so that his past self wouldn't see him. If this was real he could screw up something important. Maybe that's what Strucker wanted. Maybe Steve would mess with something, and Captain America would never exist.

"You shouldn't speak to girls that way," little 22-year old Steve said. His blue eyes were bright with defiance.

"She had it coming," the bigger boy said.

Steve remembered this moment. He'd witnessed this thug speaking unkindly to his date at the movies, and Steve had called him out. Perhaps not his smartest move, but the girl had been crying, and Steve hadn't been able to stay quiet. The boy had dragged him into this alley to punish him for speaking up. It took a lot of restraint for Steve not to go marching into the alley, but he held himself back. Then he realized what happened next. His heart skipped a beat.

Just as the bully drew his fist back to punch him, someone caught it and spun him around, away from little Steve.

"Bucky," Steve breathed watching as his friend came to his past self's rescue.

"What's going on?" Bucky asked. He wasn't as tall as the bully, but his shoulders were broad with muscles instead of extra weight, and the boy backed away a step.

"I was just teaching him a lesson," the boy said, nodding to Steve who had straightened his jacket and tie and was glaring at the boy looking like he wanted to punch him again. He did remember getting one good punch in.

"Why don't you teach me instead?" Bucky asked, looking dangerous as he rolled up his sleeves.

"Buck-" little Steve started, but Bucky ignored him.

"Come on, take your best shot," Bucky said, motioning toward his face.

Steve watched as the bully swung a fist at Bucky. Bucky ducked with a deft motion and punched the boy square in the jaw. The boy staggered back, and Bucky swept his feet out from under him. The boy landed hard and lay there, dazed. Bucky turned to Steve, shaking his head. "How many is this now?"

"You didn't need to do that."

Bucky sighed. "You always say that but then you come home sporting a nice black and blue mess all over your face." He pulled Steve past the bully and down the other side of the alley. Steve followed as quietly as he could, but Bucky and little Steve seemed completely unaware that they were being trailed. It was the strangest thing Steve had ever done, following his past self and past Bucky. Stranger even than waking up in 2012. He wanted to call out to Bucky, warn him not to get on that train, but he knew that wasn't a good idea. Not right now. But what if he _did_ warn Bucky? Could he keep Bucky from ever being experimented on? The temptation was overwhelming, but how many things would change if that happened? He could mess up everything. Red Skull could survive. Peggy could die. He could never meet Aspen. There were too many things tied to his past. It was safer just to leave them be. But why then had he been sent here? To see himself get beat up? To see Bucky again? He had to admit it was both heart wrenching and wonderful seeing his best friend alive and well again. There was no haunted look in Bucky's eyes yet, no hardness to his face. He hadn't killed anyone yet. He hadn't faced bullets and blood and fear.

"Charming, aren't they?" a voice said close to Steve's ear. He whirled around and found himself facing a blonde woman wearing a fitted red suit. Her accent was German, and Steve saw a Hydra band on her arm. He took a step back away from her. "You could save him, you know. Keep him from ever falling off that train."

"How do you know about that?" Steve asked.

"I have seen it. I have seen many things. Like this moment right now." She struck so quickly that Steve barely managed to block. Something sharp pricked his neck, and she backed away, smiling. She watched as he fell to his knees, his mind overcome with sudden drowsiness. "The venom will wear off in a few hours. It's not strong enough to do any lasting damage," she said. Two men appeared at her side, and Steve was dragged into the back of a covered truck. He heard the name "Strucker" and the word "girl" but then everything turned black.


	7. Peggy Carter

**Author's Note: **I'm totally stoked for this. I have never really gotten the chance to write about Peggy, but here it is.

* * *

><p><strong>Peggy Carter<strong>

**November 11, 1940**

Peggy's car stopped outside of London at an airfield, and Aspen got out of her cab, paying the driver and ignoring his protests that he didn't take American money. Peggy was speaking to the driver of the car, so Aspen hung back, pretending to be observing one of the small planes while hiding behind it's tail end. The driver drove off, and Peggy approached one of the fancier looking airplanes. Aspen let out a small gasp of surprise when she read the name on the side of the plane. Stark.

A dapper man with dark hair and a well-trimmed mustache greeted Peggy. Aspen did a double take. The man was so similar to Tony Stark there was no way he _wasn't_ Tony's father. She remembered that Peggy had worked with Howard Stark during the war. She had been so focused on Howard she realized Peggy had disappeared a moment later. She looked around. Something grabbed her shoulder from behind, and she spun around to find herself facing an irritable looking Peggy.

"You'd better explain why you've been following me and quickly," she said. Aspen looked down to see that she was holding a gun in her hand.

"I'm not a spy!" Aspen said in a hurry.

"Keep talking."

Aspen opened her mouth, but words wouldn't come out. What could she say? Peggy didn't know Steve yet, so she couldn't say she was a friend of his. "I'm a free agent," she said finally. "I've been tracking Hydra, and I know you're fighting against them too. I thought maybe you had a lead. I wanted to see if I could help but didn't know how to ask."

"Why should I believe you?" Peggy asked. The gun hadn't wavered.

"I'm not sure I have a good reason," Aspen said. "If I told you the truth you'd think I was crazy."

"I've seen my fair share of crazy already in this war. Try me."

_Please don't let me mess up the future_, Aspen pleaded silently. "I'm going to get something out of my bag," she told Peggy. "I don't have a weapon. It's my driver's license."

"Go on, but I'm not lowering my gun."

Aspen pulled her driver's license out of her coat pocket and held it out to Peggy. Peggy took it with her free hand and read it over. "This is impossible," she said, looking back up at Aspen.

"Improbable but Hydra seems to work magic these days."

"It says that you were born in 1990 and that this was issued to you in 2012. Who are you?" Peggy was looking at her with cautious curiosity mingled with disbelief.

"I'm Aspen Tolvar. I'm from the future. I know that does sound crazy, but I was tracking a name named Strucker." She saw recognition in Peggy's eyes. "And he had this device. It sent me back here." She didn't mention Steve. "I ended up in London. I saw you getting into the car-"

"But how do you know who I am?" Peggy asked. "Do we meet in the future?" She narrowed her eyes, but Aspen could see she was working on wrapping her mind around what Aspen had told her.

"I really hope so. I also really hope I'm not completely screwing up the future by talking to you now, but I don't know what else to do or who else to turn to. I trust you. I know you don't trust me, but I trust you. I know Howard's son too."

"He has a son?" Peggy glanced over at Howard who was watching them with his hands tucked into the pockets of his leather jacket.

"Yes, he does." Aspen noticed that Peggy had loosened her grip on her gun. "Look, I don't know why I was brought here, but it must be for some reason if I found you. I wasn't in London when I found Strucker's machine."

Peggy finally dropped her gun, stowing it away in her pocket. "I believe you, crazy as this all sounds," she said finally. "Hydra is capable of frighteningly advanced things, and I did hear rumors of Strucker building a machine. I don't think even a Hydra agent would fabricate such a story." She handed Aspen back her license. "I'm headed into Germany for a mission. If you want to help, you can come, but it will be dangerous."

"I want in," Aspen said. "I really am an agent but I work for the organization you help found in the 50s."

Peggy looked surprised. "Then I might need your help. Let me introduce you to Howard."

Aspen followed her with a surreal sense of déjà vu as she shook Howard Stark's hand. "This is Aspen," Peggy introduced. "She's going to be helping us."

"If you say so," Howard said, shaking Aspen's hand. "It's a pleasure." He gave her a winning smile. No wonder he'd been considered a lady's man, Aspen thought. Like Tony, he had a certain charm to him. He was certainly handsome.

"Thanks, it's nice to meet you too," she said.

"Ah, another America. Good. It was getting a little stuffy here." He winked at Peggy who rolled her eyes.

"Let's get going," she said. As they got into the airplane, she looked Aspen over. "You're not planning on wearing that on the mission, are you?" she asked.

"I have other clothes," Aspen said. She cast Howard a glance. "From home."

"You'll have time to change later. Strap in." They strapped themselves in as Howard started the plane's engine. Aspen couldn't stop glancing at Peggy as the plane took off into the air and headed toward Germany.

"I take it you've heard of Johann Schmidt," Peggy said to her.

"Yes, I have," Aspen said.

"Well he's captured an important scientist named Abraham Erskine."

"Doctor Erskine!" Aspen exclaimed before she could stop herself. Peggy gave her a sharp look. "I've heard of him," she said in way of explanation. "He plays a very important role in the war. Why does Schmidt have him?"

"Doctor Erskine has been working on developing a particular serum that caught Schmidt's interest. It's vital that Hydra – that's Hitler's science division – doesn't get its hands on that serum. It could have disastrous consequences."

"How are you going to rescue him?" Aspen asked.

"A cover has been arranged," Peggy said. "My organization has arranged for me to become Schmidt's new maid. That will give me access to the castle and the ability to snoop."

"That sounds really risky." Aspen hadn't even known Peggy had rescued Doctor Erskine. It wasn't something Steve had ever talked about so maybe he didn't know either. She realized now all that was hanging on this one moment. If Peggy didn't successfully rescue Doctor Erskine then Captain America would never be born. Steve would never go to war, and Peggy wouldn't even know that he existed. Aspen was suddenly terrified that she was going to mess something up. Perhaps she should have stayed in London after all.

"I can't risk this plan failing so if you can't handle it, then you can stay with Howard," Peggy said crisply.

"I can handle it," Aspen said quickly. "I think I was meant to help. Why else would I have been sent back to this exact time and location?"

Peggy frowned. "I can't answer that. I stopped doubting the unbelievable the moment I was introduced to Hydra and their experiments. But how do I know you're not working for Strucker in the future? You could have been sent back to botch this."

"If you really believe that, you never would have let me on this plane," Aspen said. "Just trust that I would never do anything that would put you in danger. I'm close to someone in the future who will become quite close to you very soon. He's from your time."

"Was he sent back too? From the future?"

"I don't know. He was with me, but I don't know where he was sent. I wish I knew." She had the feeling she was getting further and further from Steve.

"Maybe this wasn't where he was meant to be," Peggy tried to reassure her.

"What I don't get is why Strucker would send us back. I think he might be trying to stop something from happening which makes getting Doctor Erskine free of Schmidt even more important. Maybe he thinks we'll mess up our own futures and cease to exist."

"We won't let that happen," Peggy said.

"What if I'm trapped here forever?" The thought sprung into Aspen's mind, and she felt herself begin to panic again. "What if there's no way to send us back?"

"We'll figure this out," Peggy said. "Let's focus on the task at hand first. After that we can find a way to get you home."

"All right." Somehow having Peggy on her side made anything seem possible. "How can I help?"

"You said you're an agent. What are your skills?" Peggy asked.

"I'm fairly good at stealth and infiltration. I'm a good shot and handy with a knife, decent with a bow. And…" She paused, fingering the cuff she wore around her wrist. Did it even work in this time? Peggy didn't miss the motion.

"That's not just a bracelet, is it?"

"I was injected with a serum similar to Erskine's," Aspen admitted. "Only instead of enhancing my physical abilities, it enhanced my mental abilities. I basically have access to my whole brain, but I'm not at all adept at using it. I don't know my limitations or even what all I can do. I'm terrified I'm going to hurt someone or lose control so I keep this cuff on. It keeps my powers at bay. My parents invented the serum. It's a long story, but I wasn't meant to be injected with it. It was an imperfect serum at first, and it nearly killed me."

"I'm sorry you were injected without your permission, but imagine what all you could do," Peggy said. "I think you're strong enough to control it."

"You think so?" Aspen asked, surprised. "I'm not so sure about that."

"Sometimes we can't see the strength within ourselves until we put ourselves out on the line and force ourselves to either succeed or fail. You might surprise yourself if you take that cuff off your wrist."

"Maybe." Aspen was more convinced she'd somehow turn everything into a disaster if she tried that.

"Well we'll work with your natural skills first. You said you can shoot a bow? That might come in handy."

"I'm not as good as the friend who taught me, but I think I can make some decent shots."

"I think you're being modest." Peggy smiled at her. "I think you could pass as my younger sister. Not that we look anything alike, but they won't ask questions. I'm from an agency known for its hard-working and _silent_ maids. You don't know any German, do you?"

"No."

"Pity, you'll have to be mute then, I'm afraid. Schmidt will most likely question us when we arrive."

The thought of meeting Red Skull in person terrified Aspen. Being interrogated by him would be a nightmare. "Is he…does he look like a normal person?" She wasn't sure if he was Red Skull yet.

"As far as I know. Should he look different?" Peggy asked.

"Not yet."

Peggy didn't question her further, and Aspen thought she might try to be avoiding asking questions about the future. "My name is to be Eva. What shall we call you? How about Elsa? Elsa and Eva. Easy to remember." Aspen nodded. "Our mission is to find out where Doctor Erskine is being kept captive and find an extraction route all while avoiding suspicion." Aspen gulped. Somehow the stakes seemed much higher now. Even the Battle of New York hadn't been this stressful. "Schmidt has a castle in a secluded part of Germany. He does a lot of his work there, and I'm afraid he's going to try to replicate the serum if he gets his hands on it. Doctor Erskine will try to resist, but I'm afraid Schmidt will get his way in the end."

"As if Hitler wasn't bad enough," Aspen muttered.

Peggy's eyes danced with unasked questions, but she shook her head and continued on. "Howard will drop us off, and we'll continue on foot. I have sets of clothes for both of us, but you might want to bring a change of clothes in case we need to make a quick escape. I'll have a radio and be able to contact Howard when we're ready to make our escape. With luck we'll be able to get Doctor Erskine out and reclaim any samples of serum in the castle. We'll need to see if there are any before we leave. We can't leave something like that lying around."

"What duties will we be performing as maids?" Aspen asked, imagining dusting an entire castle and scrubbing floors.

"We'll be cleaning the main rooms as well as taking care of laundry and ironing. We may need to serve meals. He has a small staff, but we won't be in charge of cooking."

"That's a relief."

"We'll need to be careful in spying around the castle, but two sets of eyes are better than one. You could prove quite helpful."

"I certainly hope so. I don't know what I'd do with myself if I failed Peggy Carter. You're my role model."

Peggy looked touched. "You might be the only one to think that," she said. "I'm surprised I was allowed this mission to be honest. The British Secret Intelligence doesn't usually allow females to serve as agents, but I worked my way here despite it all."

"Men are just jealous that women can make just as good if not better agents," Aspen told her.

"I hope you're appreciated in your time," Peggy said, looking hopeful.

"I am. There are quite a few women agents. I've never faced adversity because of it though I wouldn't say women have entirely equal rights. Still, in my organization it doesn't matter one way or another."

"That's because I helped found it," Peggy said with a smile.

"Exactly." Aspen had somehow lost some of her fear while talking to Peggy. It was like a strange and incredibly wonderful dream coming true. She only hoped meeting Peggy didn't change anything vital about the future.


	8. The Agent and the Super Soldier

**Author's Note: **Sorry, I said I was going to be better about posting and I wasn't. I took a little break, but I found not writing in my stories made me feel like I was missing something in my life *coughSteveRogerscough*, so here I am! Here are just a few shorts from Peggy's point of view. I'll get back to the main plot in the next chapter. I went and made myself cry on the last part of this chapter... I was also listening to a really sad song while writing it. Just sitting there crying my eyes out over Peggy and Steve. The usual. Oh, also I realized they met on my birthday! (Just a few...lot...of years before I was born...) But that is special. :)

* * *

><p><strong>St. Martin-In-The-Fields School for Girls<strong>  
><strong>September 12, 1932<strong>

Peggy Carter wasn't one to back down. Not even when she was in the youngest class at her all girl's school where the older girls tended to bully the younger students. One particularly menacing girl had cornered little Anna Hines after gym class with the intention of stealing her lunch money. Peggy was just behind and watched the scene play out. The teachers weren't as eagle-eyed as they claimed to be and a lot of this behavior went unchecked. Peggy could see Anna trembling from all the way across the field.

"Hand it over!" Penelope something-or-another shouted at Anna, holding out a greedy palm.

"I don't have any money!" Anna protested.

"I don't believe you. If you don't hand it over, I'm going to pound you!" Penelope played sports, and it was well known that she could throw a punch. An opponent who had gotten the better of Penelope had learned that the hard way at the last racquetball tournament. "I'll give you to the count of three. One…two…" She raised her fist. A hand clamped down on her arm before she could get to three. Penelope whirled around to find herself facing Peggy. Peggy wasn't particularly tall for an eleven year old. Her dark hair was long and she wore it down with a neat little clip to keep it away from one side of her face. Her face was sweet and innocent but with a touch of maturity that most of the other girls lacked. Her brown eyes were calm and calculating as she met Penelope's gaze.

"How _dare _you?" Penelope growled, throwing Peggy's hand off her arm.

"Leave Anna alone," Peggy warned softly.

"Make me!" Penelope shouted. "I'll take your money too!" She didn't get the chance. As soon as her fist moved toward Peggy, the younger girl ducked, grabbing hold of Penelope's arm again and twisting. She kicked Penelope's legs out from under her before the older girl could even try to fight her grasp. Penelope went down like a sack of bricks. She lay, dazed. This had never happened to her before. Peggy was helping Anna now, putting an arm around the other girl.

"Don't get up," Peggy told Penelope.

Penelope glared up at her, but Peggy was already leading Anna away. "Thank you," the girl thanked Peggy. "She stole my money last week too. You're so brave to stand up to her. I wish I could be like you." Anna had been ill as a child and had a pale, gaunt face. Her growth had been stunted and so she was shorter than most of her classmates. Unfortunately girls like Penelope tended to target her.

"You don't have to be like me to stand up for yourself," Peggy told her. "You're worth ten Penelopes. Just believe in yourself and never let anyone tell you you're worth less than them. Your opinion is the only one that matters, and people like Penelope have no right to tell you differently."

Anna smiled. "You really think I'm worth ten of her?"

"I know it, but more importantly, _you_ should know it. Penelope is just a bully."

"How did you learn to fight like that?"

"You're not the only one who's faced bullies," Peggy told her. "I didn't want to keep going down. I wanted to be able to defend myself, but you can defend yourself with more than fists. Brains are just as good as weapons. You can outthink your opponent just as well as fight them."

"I don't think I could fight anyone," Anna said with a shy smile.

"Sometimes we don't have a choice," Peggy told her. "Sometimes all we can do is fight, but fighting isn't always fists and guns. Sometimes fighting is simply refusing to give up."

**At First Glance  
><strong>**June 15, 1943**

The new recruits were a shabby bunch, but they always looked that way when they first arrived at their training camp. Peggy kept a close eye on them as they started their training routine. One of these men – if one did indeed prove worthy – would become the first in a new Super Soldier program. Her eyes found Doctor Abraham Erskine, the man who had created the Super Soldier Serum. He was watching the recruits with keen eyes too, and she knew it would be his final word that would be the deciding factor in who was picked. Colonel Chester Phillips seemed to think the biggest, strongest recruit was the right choice, but Erskine had already rejected three years worth of recruits stating that none of them had been the right choice.

Peggy understood that it took more than brawn to become the soldier Erskine envisioned. It took heart and courage and brains too. Erskine had seen what the serum had done to Schmidt. He wasn't going to take a chance if he wasn't entirely convinced. Now as Peggy watched, she noted one boy who fell behind the others, breathing raggedly. She frowned. He didn't seem physically capable of keeping up with the other recruits, but he continued on with a stout determination that Peggy couldn't help but admire.

"He's smaller and weaker than the rest, but he doesn't give up," Doctor Erskine said, coming up beside Peggy.

"Yes, I noticed." They watched together as the recruits ran the course.

"He reminds me of someone," Erskine continued.

"Who's that?" Peggy asked, glancing at the doctor. He gave her a smile.

"You," he replied. "I've seen that determination in you as well."

"Well then there may yet be hope," she returned with a smile. She checked the timetable on her clipboard. "Time to bring them in." She moved off to order them on the ground for pushups.

…

The night was warm and Peggy decided to take a walk before turning in for the night. She let her shoulders relax after a day of demanding men around. There was no room for letting her guard down. She had to demand respect if she was going to be in charge of their training. So far only one of the men had stood up to her, and he'd ended up in the dirt with an aching nose. It wasn't that Peggy wasn't used to the adversity of being a woman in a job usually withheld for men. She'd faced it her entire life as she'd worked her way into the British Secret Intelligence and then the Strategic Science Reserve, clawing her way into the position of Agent. It had been hard work, but she was hardly one to back down from a challenge.

Now a new challenge lay ahead of her though she'd broken in new recruits before. Every time it was different though. She never knew when the perfect candidate might appear.

Peggy headed for one of the benches across from the training field. She was distracted by her thoughts and didn't see the small figure hunched over a book until she was nearly to the bench. He looked up at her with the bluest eyes framed by long lashes. His blonde hair was neatly combed back. "I'm sorry, I thought I was alone," Peggy said. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

She'd thought all the men would be in the rec room until lights out.

"You're not disturbing me," he said. He looked down as if shy.

"What are you reading?" Peggy asked. She'd thought she wanted to be alone, but she found herself suddenly intrigued by this boy who'd rather read than let off steam with his fellow recruits in the rec room. He showed her the cover – it was a book on war tactics.

"I thought it might help," he said, and she could see the determination in the set of his shoulders as he straightened. "Nothing against your training, of course," he added quickly, looking a bit mortified as if he'd said something wrong. "I just thought reading about strategies might help too." This was a first. Usually the boys were content to run the laps and have orders shouted at them. None of them had shown any interest in reading books or learning about tactics and strategies.

"I'm sure it will," she said with a smile. "I'll let you get back to it-" She paused, unsure of his name.

"Steve," he filled in for her. "Steve Rogers."

"Steve then. Goodnight." She left him there to read, a smile playing on her lips. At least not _all _the recruits were dimwits.

…

Peggy tried not to pick favorites, but she watched Steve with interest over the next few days. It was clear that he wasn't physically capable of keeping up with the others but he never once complained. While the others groaned when ordered to do pushups after a particularly grueling workout, Steve was the first to begin even if he could hardly manage one. Doctor Erskine had noticed too. Peggy saw him watching Steve with hopeful eyes. He was the most unlikely choice in many ways but somehow the only one that made any sense to her. Colonel Phillips disagreed, however, and cornered Peggy after the third day at camp.

"Please tell me you can talk some sense into the doctor," he said. "He's got his heart set on picking the scrawny one."

Peggy pursed her lips. "After the serum, it hardly matters how strong he is before," she defended him. Steve had shown more initiative than any of the other recruits and despite his long list of ailments, he pushed through as best he could.

"If he even survived the serum injection."

"With respect, sir, he's got other qualities that make him a much more suitable candidate than the others."

"Oh, not you too," Phillips said, rolling his eyes upwards.

"He's showed determination and discipline that none of the other candidates have. Just look at how hard he worked to get into the Army." Peggy hadn't realized how passionate she was on this subject, but now she wanted to defend Steve against Phillips's judgment. "Who do you think would do better?"

"Any of them! One who doesn't start wheezing every time he so much as jumps."

"Maybe you should tell your concerns to Doctor Erskine yourself, sir. I'm not sure I share them. If you'll excuse me, I need to monitor their daily run." Peggy gave a quick salute and left him to brood. She would be riding ahead of the recruits today, keeping notes on their progress as they ran.

Steve was in last as usual, but not too far behind the others. The drill sergeant stopped them, instructing them to retrieve the camp flag from its tall, metal pole. If one managed to grab the flag then he'd get a ride back in the car. Peggy watched from as the boys threw themselves at the slippery pole with no thought to strategy. Hodge came somewhat close, but slid back down when he was only halfway up the pole. Steve hung back from the others, catching his breath. As the sergeant called the boys back into formation, Steve stepped up to the flagpole. He looked up at it like he was analyzing it. Ignoring the drill sergeant's summons, he reached down and pulled the metal pin from the base of the pole. The pole dropped to the ground at once, and Steve walked forward to grab the flag, placing it in the flabbergasted sergeant's hand.

With a "thank you, sir," he climbed into the back of the car, giving Peggy a smile. Peggy couldn't help but return it.

…

Colonel Phillips still wasn't convinced, but Peggy was. And so was Doctor Erskine. Peggy hadn't spoken to Steve again since his first day at camp, but she observed him from a distance. He was quiet – not shy but simply observant. He noticed the world around him while the others simply kept their eyes straight ahead. He was smart and relied on his mind instead of his muscles. He could think his way through situations in ways the others couldn't. His soft voice and quiet manners alone stood him apart from the others. While the rest were loud and pushy, he was polite and respectful. It wasn't about becoming the perfect soldier for him; it was about giving everything he had whether it was enough or not. She knew if given a chance he would sacrifice his life too if the war called for it.

Who better to become the perfect soldier?

He proved the next day that he was more than willing to sacrifice himself to save everyone around him when he threw his tiny body on a dummy grenade Colonel Phillips threw into the group of recruits. Peggy's breath froze in her lungs as she watched. For a second she expected an explosion, but it didn't come. Steve seemed to realize it wasn't going to go off. He sat up. He was the only one who hadn't run away. Doctor Erskine looked more than pleased while Phillips looked grudgingly impressed. Peggy's heartbeat slowed, and she realized she'd grown to care for the little boy from Brooklyn despite it all. She was supposed to be objective when it came to the recruits, but the second she had set eyes on Steve Rogers she'd known he was different, special. She'd known he was the one.

**Disappeared**  
><strong>March 5, 1945<strong>

Every paper read the same headline today. **Rogers Disappears**. It was a constant reminder of how much Steve had sacrificed for his country, for the world. Peggy tried not to glance at the newspaper on the table next to her. Everyone was talking about Steve as if they'd known him. They knew who Captain America was of course, but they didn't know who Steve was. The only people who really understood the loss Peggy had suffered were the Howling Commandos. They knew the real Steve, knew what he'd sacrificed… Peggy hadn't been able to face anyone she knew today which was why she was hidden away in a café on a random street in London.

Everyone was discussing what would happen next now that Captain America was gone, presumably dead. The war wasn't won yet.

Peggy clutched her mug of coffee, soaking in the warmth. She'd felt cold every since Steve had taken the Valkyrie down. And alone. She'd never expected to feel this way. When she'd first seen little Steve Rogers, the boy who wouldn't give up until he got into the Army, she'd known he was someone special, but she had never realized just how much he would come to mean to her. She'd hardly had a chance to realize how she felt and now he was gone. The idea of never seeing that smile or those blue eyes again or hearing his voice… Peggy shut her eyes against the pain of it. She couldn't imagine a world without Steve Rogers because she wasn't sure there could be a world without him.

Peggy had stood alone for most of her life, determined to climb her way to the top of her career despite the opposition. She didn't depend on other people. She didn't let loss defeat her. But she didn't want to live the rest of her life without Steve. She was just getting used to the idea of him being in her life, and now he was gone. A tear escaped her eye, and she wiped it hastily away. Damn it all, she wasn't going to break down here. She clutched her mug tighter, but suddenly the coffee tasted like lead, and the café felt stifling. She paid for the drink and left in a hurry. She had no purpose to her steps but she found herself back at a familiar bar. It had been hit hard during the bombings, but she stepped inside anyway, avoiding the fallen beams and broken tables and chairs. She made her way to the back where the bar still stood intact. The chairs were still in the same position as when she had found Steve after his friend Bucky had fallen to his death. She didn't remember what she'd said to him then. She sat down at the same table where he had sat, and a sob built in her throat as she traced her fingers down the ghosts of his handprints where the rubble had been dusted away. She had no words of wisdom for herself. This was heartbreak clean and simple. It _hurt_ in a way she didn't know she could hurt. She finally let herself break down, shaking like a city struck with a dozen bombs. She cried until she wondered at the tears that kept falling. Shouldn't she have run out by now? Maybe she'd saved them up over the years of disciplining herself to not cry.

_Peggy?_ She knew it was just her imagination, but she let herself believe that Steve was sitting across from her, reaching out a hand to comfort her. She could picture him there, blonde hair carefully combed back, uniform flawlessly ironed. _Why are you crying?_

"Because I lost you," she said aloud. There was no one there to hear her anyway. "And I don't know how to go on when someone as good as you was taken away by this war."

_You have to keep going, Peggy. There's still a war that needs to be won. They still need you._

"I'm not sure if I can."

_Of course you can. You're Peggy Carter. You're the bravest, most determined woman I know. You believed in me when no one else did. You inspired me to be the best I could be even when I'd forgotten my purpose. You reminded me. Now you need to believe in yourself._

Peggy let the vision slide as her tears thickened again. She swiped at her eyes, and her tears slowed. She couldn't break down now. Steve wasn't here to see the war won, so she needed to make sure it was won without him. There was no way in hell his sacrifice was going to be for naught.

She suddenly remembered her words to him after Bucky had died. _You did everything you could. Did you believe in your friend? Did you respect him? Then stop blaming yourself. Allow Barnes the dignity of his choice. He damn well must have thought you were worth it._

Here she was feeling defeated when Steve had made his choice. He'd chosen to sacrifice himself, and now it was Peggy's duty to finish what he had started. She stood, wiping the rest of her tears away.

"I believe in you, Steve. And I believe in myself because you helped me to want to be the best I could be. We're going to win this war, and the world is going to know just how much you sacrificed to save it."

Feeling a little stronger, Peggy squared her shoulders and left the bar, heading out into the afternoon sun. Hydra was still out there somewhere, and she wouldn't stop until she had taken them down. She took a shuddering breath and made her way back to headquarters. Time to win a war.


	9. Phantoms

**Phantoms**

**November 11, 1940**

Steve opened his eyes blearily, wincing at the harsh lights overhead. His head was aching, and his blood felt like it was on fire. His memories were blurred, and he couldn't remember what had happened. Nothing around him looked familiar. He was lying on a hard cot in what appeared to be a metal-enclosed cell. Through the bars he could see a hallway lined with other gated cells. The lighting was hazy, and nothing natural penetrated wherever he was.

His memories were starting to come back, and he tried to shake his head clear. Nothing made sense. Had he really woken up in the 40s? It hadn't sunk in yet. He'd faced some odd things in his life, an alien attack on Earth being number one on the list. This was possibly tied. What frightened him the most wasn't being captured behind bars or in the past, which he could, potentially, mess up. It was that he had no idea where Aspen was. He didn't even know if she had been sent back with him. She could be anywhere and though he'd told her stories about the 40s since they'd met, it was still a completely new world to her. Even if he did escape, he had no idea how to find her. It occurred to him that she might be here too. They might have gotten to her first and that was why he couldn't find her in New York. His mind replayed his awakening. He'd seem himself – his past self – and Bucky. That was before he'd been confronted by a woman. His hand went to his neck. She'd injected him with something. Poison? No wonder his blood was on fire. The pain was fading though, and his head wasn't throbbing so painfully anymore. He tried to sit up and his vision blurred as a surge of pain stabbed through his head. He waited until his vision grew clear again and the pain had stopped to survey his surroundings closer.

He got up and pushed against the barred door. It would be locked of course, but instead it opened at his touch, swinging open with a creak. This had to be some sort of trap. Who would be careless enough to leave a door unlocked after going to the effort to take him? He took a step forward but nothing happened. His head still felt dizzy, and the hall seemed to rush toward him as he stepped into it. He shook his head, trying to focus. He stepped forward onto the concrete floor, once painted red but now cracked and chipping. The other cells were empty though he thought he saw movement in one as he passed. His mind was playing tricks on him though, and he was alone. A single green door sat at the end of the hall. It seemed to take ages to reach it as if the hall had suddenly stretched itself out. He reached for the handle and pushed the door open. The hall beyond was even dimmer than the first, and the overhead lights flickered. A single fly was dancing with the bulb, buzzing discordantly every time he hit it. Something moved at the other end of the hall, and this time Steve was sure it wasn't just his imagination.

"Hello?" he called out softly.

Movement caught his eye again. He walked forward, keeping his eyes set ahead. The light furthest from him was dead, but as he neared it, the light flickered on long enough for him to see a splash of red hair disappearing around the bend.

"Aspen!" He broke into a run, tearing around the corner. He could see Aspen ahead, turning yet another corner. She didn't slow even at his voice. He turned the next corner and saw Aspen disappear behind a door. He didn't understand why she wouldn't stop. He approached the door slowly, pushing it open and entering what was unmistakably a lab. "Aspen?" He looked around, but she was nowhere in sight.

A low moan sounded from across the room, and Steve crossed the floor, senses on high alert. Someone was strapped to one of the tables. Steve recognized the dark hair. "Bucky?" Bucky wasn't supposed to be here. This was all wrong.

Bucky turned deep blue eyes up to Steve, but no recognition shone in them. "Don't let them catch you," he whispered. "Don't let them strap you down." There was pain in his voice, and his hands shook from under their restraints. Steve hurried to unstrap him. Another moan sounded behind him, and he whirled around. Another bed was occupied though he could have sworn it had been empty a moment before. Red hair cascaded over the white sheets of the cot like blood. Aspen's pale face looked over at Steve. Her green eyes were distant and the scar that ran down her cheek stood out vividly. She was dressed in a white shift that was thin as paper. She must been freezing.

"Steve." Her voice was hoarse, and she tried to reach out a hand. She wasn't even strapped down, but she was too weak to move.

"Aspen!" Hadn't she just been running? How had she gotten here? "We need to get out of here, now." He didn't know what was happening, but he knew they needed to get out. He pulled her into his arms, cradling her body against his. "Bucky-" He turned, but Bucky wasn't on the cot anymore. "Bucky?" He looked around, but he and Aspen were alone.

He heard a low chuckle from the door where he'd entered. A woman strode forward with painted red lips and matching nails. Her dark hair was neatly curled at her shoulders and her smart suit hugged her curves. "Peggy?" This was all wrong. Peggy shouldn't be here. They hadn't even met yet.

"Mind playing tricks on you?" she asked. "She's not really here, you know."

Steve looked down at Aspen who vanished before his eyes, leaving his arms empty. He stared at the space she'd once occupied for a moment before dropping his arms to his sides. "What is this?" he asked, looking up at the Peggy-illusion.

"It's all in your mind," she said, striding forward. She put a hand on his chest, standing right before him. "What would you do if you could reverse time? What would you do if you and I were here right now and the future hadn't happened yet?"

"I wouldn't believe it. If Bucky and Aspen were illusions, so are you."

The illusion Peggy pursed her lips thoughtfully. "It seems we can't trick you, Captain. Your mind is much more grounded than I gave it credit for. Very well." She pushed back away from him, and the place on his chest where her hand had lain seemed to burn hot. "No more illusions then." Before his eyes Peggy faded.

A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he staggered, grabbing onto one of the cots to keep steady. He sunk onto it, his legs wobbling under him. He felt weak – not a feeling he liked to have when he was in enemy territory with no idea of what was going on. His head wouldn't stop throbbing now, and he felt as if it might split open at any moment. He had to lie down. He didn't want to, but his body felt heavy and all he wanted to do was sleep.

"Amazing, isn't it?" came a voice from above him, not one he recognized this time. "The effects of the venom I injected you with. It can make you see all kinds of things." The woman who'd found him in New York.

Steve tried to sit up, but he couldn't move. A light was turned on him so that he had to shut his eyes against it. He tried to speak, but the words wouldn't come. He felt a fingernail glide across his cheek. A voice purred close to his ear. "Don't try to move. Your body is still fighting to get the venom out of your system. It will take a few more hours which gives us plenty of time for us to get what we need."

"_Aspen_…" He barely managed her name. The woman laughed softly.

"I assume she is your sweetheart, the one who also came back. She's not here. I don't know where she is so that means she's out there wandering alone somewhere. Whatever will she do without her Super Soldier to protect her?" The voice was mocking and Steve struggled to regain consciousness, but he was falling into the deepest, darkest form of sleep.

…

Aspen leaned her head against the window of the plane. The cool glass chilled her skin, but her thoughts were miles away wondering where Steve was. Howard Stark had informed them they'd be landing in enemy territory a few hours after dark. Aspen would have been lying if she'd said she wasn't nervous. Part of her thought it would be a better idea to stay behind – Peggy had done this before after all. Or she would be doing it…it was so complicated. In the future, Peggy had accomplished this feat. Steve wouldn't be a Super Soldier if she hadn't. But this _was_ that moment. If Aspen messed it up now then the future would be irrevocably changed. Something was telling her that she was supposed to be here though. Fate? She wasn't sure she believed in fate but something had gotten her this far. It couldn't all be coincidence.

She felt the plane begin to lose altitude and realized that they would be landing soon. She peered out the window but everything was dark, and she had no idea how Stark was navigating. She gave her cuff a nervous twist. Howard touched down in a field – a rough landing but they made it – and Peggy signaled for Aspen to follow her.

"I'll pick you up in two days unless you tell me otherwise," Howard told Peggy. "Good luck you two." He cast Aspen a curious glance. Aspen pulled the pack Peggy had given her onto her back giving him a nervous smile. She jumped to the ground and joined Peggy as Howard took to the air again.

"I have a radio, so if we need to call him in sooner, we can," Peggy assured her.

"What if they search us at the castle?" Aspen asked.

"Oh, I'm counting on it." Peggy pulled out worn looking hairbrush. "But they won't be looking too closely at everyday objects." She slid her fingernails under a small panel in the back of the brush that Aspen never would have seen. A panel opened, and Aspen saw a small radio built into the interior of the brush. Peggy pulled one of the bristles up and it turned into an antenna.

"That's amazing. That's like real spy gear."

Peggy smiled. "I suppose radios are a thing of the past in your time."

"They're a little different, but same idea." She'd left her cell phone on the plane. It would be of no use to her here and if anyone found her phone, she would be questioned. She didn't want modern technology falling into Hydra's hands. Peggy stowed away her radio and started through the field toward a patch of trees up ahead. Their trunks were ghostly in the moonlight, and Aspen felt herself hesitate before slipping between them. She felt like there were eyes watching her everywhere, but nothing stirred within the trees.

"We should change here," Peggy said. She'd given Aspen a pack and a change of clothes. Aspen slipped into a long blouse and then pulled a deep green dirndl over her head. Peggy had provided her with boots that looked as if they wouldn't be too difficult to run in. When she was dressed, Peggy handed her a thick woolen coat and a wrap for her hair.

"There, you look like you fit in now," Peggy told her. "Now remember that you're Elsa and I'm Eva. I'll tell them that you don't speak so they'll have no reason to suspect you don't speak German. Follow my lead and don't make eye contact." Her eyes fell to Aspen's cuff. "If they see that they'll suspect you stole it. It looks expensive."

Aspen looked down at her cuff feeling miserable. "I can't take it off. I might lose control and put this whole mission at jeopardy."

"Then keep it hidden. Here." She pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket and tied it around Aspen's wrist, blocking the cuff from sight. "Are you ready?" Aspen nodded. "Good. It's a two mile hike to the castle." She shouldered her bag and started east. Aspen followed behind, shivering in the cool night air.

The castle rose up above the trees, and Aspen could see its towers before she could see the rest of it. It wasn't graceful like Neuschwanstein. It was chunky and broad and lumbering like a giant keeping the surrounding hills safe from trespassers. Aspen definitely felt like a trespasser. Peggy didn't look nervous, but from what Aspen knew of her, she always looked fearless. She led Aspen up the brick walkway and toward the heavy, reinforced gates. There was a bell that dangled there, and Peggy pulled the rope. The bell resounded loudly across the sleepy courtyard beyond the gates and several birds took to the air in fright. They waited for a long few minutes that might have been an hour for how long it felt to Aspen. Then there was a mechanical groan and the gates sliced upward leaving them a passage into the castle grounds. Peggy marched right in, and Aspen hurried to follow feeling much less confident under the onerous glare of the castle façade. A man opened the front door of the castle for them and ushered them in. Aspen didn't need any acting to look the meek and scared girl she was supposed to be playing.

Peggy spoke in German to the man who nodded and replied. Aspen wished she could understand but as soon as the man left them standing there, disappearing into an upstairs hallway, Peggy turned to translate. "He's going to bring someone down to meet us," she told Aspen quietly.

"Schmidt?" Aspen asked fearfully.

"Hopefully not. Just don't speak and act frightened."

"No problem." They cut off as the doorman returned with another man. It wasn't Schmidt. Aspen would have recognized him from the pictures she had seen.

"You'll have to forgive Herr Schmidt for not being able greet you himself," the man spoke in English to Aspen's surprise. Was this some sort of test? "He will be spending his time in his quarters, and you will not need disturb him. The last maid made the mistake of disturbing his work. I trust you understand how to be discreet and…invisible."

"Of course, sir," Peggy replied in a perfect German accent.

"Ah, you do speak English."

"My father was English," Peggy responded. "We learned as children."

"We were only expecting one," the man said, his eyes drifting over to Aspen. Aspen looked down at the floor, hovering close to Peggy's side.

"My sister, sir. She does not speak. I couldn't leave her at home. My father is at war and my mother is ill. You don't have to pay us both. She won't be in the way. She works hard."

"And what side is your father fighting on?" the man asked, giving her a penetrating look. It had seemed odd to Aspen that Schmidt or someone else important to Hydra would greet the new maids in person, but she saw now that it was more a test than a greeting. They were letting a stranger into their castle of secrets. They needed to know they could trust them to do their job and be quiet about it. It was a clever vulnerability that Peggy had discovered.

"He serves Herr Hitler, of course," Peggy responded.

"Very well. You can share your quarters. Your duties will be on the first and second floors. Dusting and sweeping. There are two great rooms, a library, a dining room, and three parlors. You will not go into the master's study or disturb him. His quarters are at the very end of the second floor. You do not enter those doors under any circumstances. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir," Peggy replied.

"There is a kitchen downstairs where you will take your meals. Your room is down there as well. The other maids will help you get settled. You are not to go further than your two assigned floors and the downstairs. You do not ask questions, you do not question anything you hear or see. You do not leave this castle until your service is up and you do not speak of anything to anyone."

"Yes, sir."

"I will be monitoring you as well as Brodbeck." He motioned to the doorman. "You may go downstairs and the maids will show you where the cleaning supplies are kept and explain your duties in detail."

"Thank you, sir." Peggy gave a sort of curtsy, and Aspen clumsily mimicked the motion. Peggy took her hand and they followed Brodbeck to a door down the hall. A narrow flight of stairs led downward, and they went single file. Brodbeck shut the door behind them, and Aspen felt suddenly trapped. What if they had seen straight through their ruse?

They entered a kitchen area that was dim and windowless. Two kitchen girls and a cook were preparing a meal. Their expressions were dour, and no one looked up as Peggy and Aspen entered the room. A solemn looking woman appeared from a hall on the other side of the kitchen and came toward them.

She spoke in German and Peggy responded. "I'm Eva and this is my sister Elsa," she said in English a moment later. "Our father was English, and she only understands that language. She doesn't speak much if at all."

"We were only expecting the one," the woman said, sending Aspen a fierce look that made her want to cower. She was about to pull herself up and glare back, but she remembered she was playing the part of the meek girl. She kept her eyes on the floor.

"Our father is at war and our mother ill. I couldn't leave her at home. We can share a room, and she is a hard worker."

"Very well. I am Frau Furhmann and I am in charge of the downstairs. Our job is to keep the castle clean and maintained and not be seen or heard. Herr Schmidt is a very busy and important man. We do not get in his way. The last maid got in his way. She is not here anymore. We go up between the hours of ten in the evening and five in the morning. All the cleaning is done after everyone is in their rooms for the night, and we have the fires lit and the curtains drawn before five. I trust Herr Reinhardt spoke to you about not going further than your assigned floors?"

"Yes, Frau Furhmann," Peggy replied.

"You will hear sounds in the night. You will wonder what they are. You will not question them. Herr Schimdt and Herr Reinhardt are busy men. They do not want to be disturbed. If you are cleaning and they enter the room, you leave as quickly and quietly as you can. I will be searching your bags. We're at war, and we must know you are loyal to serving the master." She held out her hands and Peggy and Aspen handed her their packs. Frau Furhmann searched the bags, rifling through them with little care. She passed over Peggy's hairbrush without a second glance. Aspen had decided to leave anything remotely 21st century on Stark's plane, so her bag passed the examination as well.

"Very well. You may go to your room and unpack. We've already had dinner, but I will have the cook put together some of the leftovers. Your room is the third door on the right down the hall. You'll have to share a bed."

"Thank you, Frau Furhmann." Peggy led Aspen down the hall and they entered a tiny room with a miniscule grate for a window. Peggy switched on the lights and they surveyed the depressing room. She shut the door and turned to Aspen.

"What do you think so far?" she asked.

"I think I feel way in over my head," Aspen said, sitting down on the creaky bed. "I felt like they saw right through me."

"How could they? You didn't even speak."

"Thank you for making up that story so they would speak English. It's disconcerting having no idea what anyone is saying. So what now? Do you have any idea where they're keeping Erskine?"

"I assume in the dungeons which is the nicest place we'll end up if we move too quickly. First we need to find out if the other maids gossip amongst themselves. Without Frau Furhmann around, I suspect their lips might be a little looser. That's where we'll get our intel. We'll have to trust our instincts."

"I'll follow your lead then. I don't want to mess anything up."

Peggy gave her a thoughtful look. "Your instincts told you to follow me, that you could help me. There's nothing wrong with your instincts. You might find you're a lot braver than you think."

"I certainly hope so."

"I can't imagine how frightening it must be to be tossed back in time into an unfamiliar place, but you're an agent, and I know you can handle this." Peggy brown eyes were honest, and Aspen smiled.

"Then let's infiltrate a castle," she said. Crazily enough, she realized, this wasn't the first time she had.


	10. It Takes Heart

**Author's Note: **I finally found time to write! I'm applying for full time jobs and had four interviews in three days. I was so stressed. I really want the third job I interviewed for! It has full medical benefits, the woman who interviewed me was so awesome, and it just felt so right. It's at a medical clinic, and I'd be checking out patients and doing clerical work. I don't find out about that one until next Friday. I was in the final three out of 65 applicants for one job which was awesome! But I decided it wasn't the right fit and I didn't get it anyway. Ugh, I need a week off from that. It's a stressful process. I haven't interviewed for jobs outside of teaching much at all. I've worked at my current job for almost 6 years, so I've really only worked like three jobs in my life.

Anyway, enough about that. I've got a lot of ideas for the following chapters, so I'll try to keep writing. I really want to get going on _A Game of Heroes_ when I can. I kind of took a hiatus already and it was nice, but I'm getting in the mood to start writing again. Sometimes it's just really hard to find the time.  
>So I have over 200 favorites on <em>A Game of Trust <em>now. WOW! Thank you! I can't believe this series has taken off that much. I was so scared to post the first one thinking no one would like it. I started out knowing basically nothing about Marvel except I liked that Steve guy. Now I know everything. Just kidding. A _lot_ of things anyway. More things about Marvel than I remember about what I learned in school... Can you major in Marvelology?

* * *

><p><strong>It Takes Heart<strong>

Steve opened his eyes and knew something was wrong immediately. He _felt_ wrong. He was back in his cell, laid out on the uncomfortable cot. He tried to move and found that his arms felt weak. Something caught in his lungs – dust – and he started to choke and cough on it, struggling for breath. He sat up and looked down at himself and did a double take. This had to be some sort of nightmare. His once muscular arms and legs were thin and weak. His body was gaunt and he could feel what he now recognized as asthma in his lungs. His heartbeat started pounding out of control. The serum wasn't working. He was the way he had been before it had changed him. He struggled to keep his emotions in control though fear and shock threatened to overwhelm him. How was this possible? What had they done to him and who was behind it? There were too many questions that he couldn't answer behind bars or in this state. He was weak and that made him defenseless.

He stood and walked over to the door, rattling the bars. This time it was locked. He'd walked straight into a trap before. Stupid. This whole thing had shaken him. He hadn't taken the time to think and now he was paying the price.

"Terrible isn't it?" a voice came from the shadows of the hallway beyond. The same woman he'd seen twice before stepped under the light. "Knowing power and having it ripped away from you."

"I used to be like this and I got by okay." He wouldn't admit how powerless he felt right now without the serum's effect on his body. He'd grown so used to it he'd begun to take it for granted. But he didn't forget being this version of himself. He'd never forget that.

"Good because you're going to be this way for awhile."

"Are you working for Strucker? Why doesn't he face me?" Steve asked angrily.

"Oh he'll see you. You're his personal guest after all. He knew you were too curious to resist meeting him. He knew you would set off the device one way or another."

"You built that just hoping we'd wander across it?"

"We built it so that Strucker might travel between the past and the future. After you dealt with Red Skull, we needed someone with equal caliber to continue Hydra's work in the future."

"So is past-Strucker aware of the future then?" This was dangerous what Strucker was doing. Changing one little moment could do a lot of damage. Leave it to people like Strucker to believe he had a right to walk through time.

The woman just smiled. "So many questions. Even losing your strength doesn't crush your spirit. Not yet."

"My abilities didn't define who I was," Steve told her. "It's my spirit that got me this far."

"You've always been a bit of a joke as far as Hydra is concerned," the woman said. "I mean really, picking a scrawny thing like you for a serum that could change the future?"

Steve knew she was just trying to bait him. He didn't give her the satisfaction of a response. "I want to see Strucker," he said instead.

"Very well. I'll take you to him." She pulled out a set of keys and unlocked his door. "This way." She didn't bother to tie his hands or pull a weapon on him. He didn't see the point in fighting her. He _did_ want to speak to Strucker. That was what he'd wanted all along. He didn't think for a moment Strucker would tell him everything, but maybe in this non-threatening form, Strucker would be more willing to tell him something. He made a mental note of everything they passed – doors that might lead to exits, vents that he might be able to fit through now. He couldn't quite place where they were. It was part prison, part laboratory. It seemed endless – a castle perhaps? A research facility? The woman's accent was German, so he assumed that was where they were.

Finally they reached a warmer part of the building with carpeted halls and walls lined with paintings. They stopped at a set of double doors at the end of the hall and the woman knocked before pushing them open and turning to let Steve in. He followed her and found himself in an office crammed with books and devices and detailed schematics for machinery that looked too advanced to be in this time. Maybe that was what future-Strucker had been doing to help.

A heavy oak desk sat in the middle of the room and Strucker sat there behind it. He was older than Steve remembered, but he couldn't quite figure out if this was Strucker from the past or Strucker from the future. "Ah, welcome, Captain Rogers. Not looking yourself, I must say. Do sit." He motioned to a chair in front of the desk. Steve sat down as the woman closed the doors behind her, leaving them alone.

"No doubt thanks to you," Steve replied.

"Well, I didn't want you in your Super Soldier body wreaking havoc all over my labs. I've seen the damage you can do to Hydra. Don't worry, it's only temporary. Well, unless I decide not to change you back. I can't permanently erase the serum from your cells."

"Why are you doing this? Why did you send us back?"

"Why Captain, I would have thought you'd have figure that out by now or has your brain gotten smaller as well as your muscles?"

Steve forced himself to stay calm. "You want to sabotage something. I just don't know what you think you can get away with. Are you trying to change the future by changing the past?"

"Do you know how much simpler my life would be without you or your costumed friends always swooping in to save the day? Without Captain America the Avengers wouldn't have a leader. They would fail before they started."

"I don't believe that. They'd do fine without me." If he hadn't been pulled from the ice Loki still would have come down to Earth and the rest of the team would still have saved the world.

"You don't see it, do you? How much others look to you for guidance. Without Captain America, the war might turn in a very different direction."

"Then why don't you just go murder past-me?"

"Because something happens in the future – your past – and without you there, I would have died. It pains me to admit it though you certainly weren't trying to save me. If I kill you before you become Captain America, then I will not have a future either."

"Can't you just avoid that moment?"

"You're not wrapping your mind around this. My past self doesn't know I exist. I cannot interfere too much without risking the future. I led you straight into that laboratory in Munich. There's something there that I needed but couldn't get to. You see, when I designed the time machine that brought you back here, I did not realize the flaw. I foolishly believed I had cracked time travel, but once I arrived here I realized my mistake. The machine can only take one into the past but not back into the present. I've been trapped here for three years. I've managed to keep in correspondence with some of my associates, but I can't get myself back."

A sinking feeling was filling Steve's gut. "So if you're trapped, that means I am too."

"Precisely."

"What did you need in your laboratory? I didn't bring anything from there with me." What a mess and now Strucker had pulled him and Aspen straight into the middle of it.

"It's up there," Strucker said, tapping his head. "In that brain of yours. There were schematics there. You saw them."

Steve thought back to the schematics and notes Aspen had taken pictures of on her phone. He could picture one that went into the details of a device similar to the one that had sent them back in time. "I remember them."

"You are the key to freeing both of us from the past. I need you to help me rebuild the machine."

"Why didn't you just send one of your men to bring it to you?" he asked. "Why me?"

"No one shows as much determination as you, Captain. It turns out my men aren't so loyal when it really counts."

Steve wanted to refuse, but he realized that machine was the key to getting all _three_ of them back into their own time. "I don't know if I saw enough."

"You did. Draw what you saw." Strucker pushed a pad of paper and a pen toward him. Steve automatically grabbed it and started to draw. He could still picture the plans clearly and soon the entire page was filled with the schematics he'd seen in Munich. He pushed it back to Strucker.

"Good, good."

"Can you fix what went wrong before?" Steve asked.

"Yes. I've had a lot of time to think here. Most of the machine is done, but I needed these schematics to finish."

"You're taking Aspen and me back with you."

Strucker narrowed his eyes, and Steve thought he was about to refuse for a moment. "The past doesn't need more than one Captain America," he said finally. "But I don't know where your girl is. She was supposed to end up where you did. Are you sure she came through?"

"She was in the room with me."

"Then I don't know where she is. When the time comes, I'm going with or without her. You'll have to make that choice too."

"I would never leave her!"

"What will she think when she sees you in your weakened state?"

"You said it was temporary. And anyway, she wouldn't care. That's not what's important."

"I wonder if you're just telling yourself that or if you really believe it." Strucker stood. "I have work to do. Nina will show you back to your cell."

"Why? You said it yourself, I'm not going to be trashing your labs with these arms."

"Still, I don't want to take any chances."

The door opened and the woman – Nina – entered again. She inclined her head, and Steve grudgingly left the office. He followed her back to his cell. He thought about running, but where would he go? He needed to be here if he wanted to get back to the 21st century, but he needed to find Aspen first. He wasn't going anywhere without her even if it meant getting trapped here in the 40s. Even if it meant staying in this state.

"I need to find my friend," he told Nina as they reached his cell. "Please, can you try to find her? I'm not going back without her."

Nina smiled sweetly, moving closer to him. He thought for a moment she might agree, but then she placed both hands on his shoulders and pushed him back into the cell. "It's too easy now," she purred, locking the door. "No one here cares about your girl. Get over her."

Steve glared at her. He was about to retort when he felt her hand on his. She pushed a piece of paper into it. He gave her a questioning look, but she was already turning away, leaving him alone. Steve walked back to his cot and sat down before looking down at the piece of paper she had slid him.

_I'm Agent 30 from SHIELD. I was investigating Strucker a few years back when he was first testing his machine. I got brought back with him, but he didn't realize it. I posed as his employee. We need Strucker to finish the machine in order to get back but this isn't the only project he's working on. He's finishing off a device that we cannot allow to be taken into the future. It's programmed to take away any powers a person might have – Super Soldier powers included – and for good. We need to stop him, but it's a fine line because he needs to come back with us. The past can't handle two Struckers. We'll get your girl back if there is time, but I have to prioritize destroying this second machine. Destroy this note and wait for further instruction._

Steve stared down at the paper. They weren't alone. Help was coming from an unexpected place. He tore up the paper until the pieces were unreadable and shoved them under the mattress of his cot. He could only hope that Agent 30 found Aspen before Strucker finished the machine.

…

Aspen entered the parlor she was supposed to be dusting. It was after dark and everything was eerie and shadowed. A large painting of Schmidt hung above the mantle of the grand fireplace. She whisked the feather duster around while her eyes roved the room. Of course nothing suspicious was left lying around. All that would be in the forbidden office. Peggy was working down the hall. She'd instructed Aspen to snoop as much as she could without arousing suspicion. The last thing Aspen wanted to do was get them caught, but she needed answers, and she wasn't going to find them here. As she worked her way around the room, her brain started working and she wondered if there were any secret passageways in the castle. She was no Nancy Drew and it wasn't like she could just start pushing on random objects or pulling out all the books in the bookshelf. She touched her bracelet. What if she removed it? Would her heightened sense pick up on a possible passageway? Was it worth the risk?

Setting down her duster, she unlatched the bracelet before she could change her mind. Instantly her abilities flooded over her in an overwhelming rush. She wanted to shut them off immediately, but she calmed herself and focused on the room. She listened and felt the air. Something caught her attention by the fireplace. There was a small chill she hadn't noticed before and, as she glanced down at the metal fire poker stand, she saw that there was a streak the ashes. She pushed at the stand and it moved backwards. The panel of wall between the fireplace and the bookshelf slid open. She jumped back in surprise. It had actually worked. She cuffed her wrist again, grabbing her duster and entering the passage. She put the handle of the duster through the doorway just incase the panel tried to shut her in. It was pitch dark further in and she had no light, so she moved slowly and carefully, running a hand along the dusty wall to guide her. She felt a trill of excitement at what she was doing. This was _movie_ spy stuff. This was something she'd never have the chance to do in her time.

The tunnel bent, and she tripped into a step. She lifted her foot and found her way upward. It must have led all the way up to the second story. She could see a faint light up ahead and walked toward it. There was a door in the wall, outlined with pinpricks of light. She heard a voice behind it. There was a small panel in the door, and she reached a hand up to pull it back. Light flooded through two oval slits. She came closer, standing a little taller to see through. She could see straight into the room beyond. A figure moved in front of her, and she stepped back before realizing he couldn't see her.

"It needs to be tonight!" a voice said. She couldn't see who spoke, but a moment later Reinhardt stepped into view.

"Can you convince him?" Reinhardt asked the first voice.

"I don't need to convince him. I'll do it myself! He's already a prisoner. He has nowhere to go. His family is dead."

"You haven't told him yet-?"

"No, I'm still using them as leverage."

Aspen felt a jolt. They were talking about Doctor Erskine, she was sure of it. She tried to catch a glimpse of the man standing just out of sight, but Reinhardt moved to block her sight.

"Are you sure this is wise?" he asked.

"Are you questioning me? Perhaps you want this serum for yourself?"

Aspen's breath caught. The other man in the room had to be none other than Johann Schmidt, and he was talking about the Super Soldier Serum. It occurred to her that if Peggy rescued Doctor Erskine in the next few days that meant that Schmidt injected himself with the serum soon. The crazy idea of getting the serum away from him before he could inject himself with it entered her mind, but she realized that without Red Skull there would be no Captain America. Steve would never have the chance to go to war, would never meet Peggy or Howard, wouldn't save Bucky from Zola. Or maybe Bucky would never have met Zola. She took a deep breath. She had to do nothing. She had to keep to the plan otherwise she could irrevocably change the future.

"Tonight," Schmidt said. "I'm taking it tonight. Get the lab prepared and bring Erskine there. He will break under the right pressure. Make sure we aren't disturbed."

"Of course Herr Schmidt." Reinhardt bowed slightly and left the room. Aspen watched another moment. She saw movement, saw a man turning to face her. It occurred to her that she might not be as invisible as she thought. She shut the panel quickly and pressed herself against the wall. She heard footsteps approaching the door. Her breath caught. Had he seen something? Was she about to give herself away? She waited with a thumping heart, terrified that she was about to meet Schmidt up close and personal. Then the footsteps moved away, and she heard a door closing. She let out a breath of relief and quietly made her way back to the entrance she'd come in through. When she reached it, she stopped short. The gap where she'd placed the feather duster was gone. The door was firmly shut. She ran her fingers all over it and the wall beside it, but she could find no latch. She was trapped. The only way out was through Schmidt's study.


	11. Out of Time

**Out of Time**

It was hard to wait. Steve was used to action, used to taking charge. Having to wait in a cell with no idea what was going on outside was unbearable. He'd paced until the dust had stirred up his asthma again. Finally he heard footsteps and Nina returned with a tray of food. She unlocked the door and entered.

"I've disabled the speakers in here," she said quietly, dropping the German accent. "We can speak freely." She set down the tray of food. Steve looked down at it suspiciously. "You can eat. I fixed it myself." She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out a SHIELD ID card. Steve inspected it for a moment before handing it back.

"How close is Strucker?" Steve asked, taking a piece of bread and biting into it. He was hungry but not like he would have been if his metabolism had been Super Soldier speed.

"Close. I'd say two days. Three tops. He plans on bringing you and the device back with him. Back in the present, there's nothing stopping him from using that device on you. He doesn't want to mess up the past any more than you do, but he doesn't care about ruining your future. It would mean the end of the Avengers."

"Can you get the serum working in my cells again?" Steve asked her.

"I can, but we need to time it just right. I know you don't like being in this state, but I can't give away my position."

"I understand. Have you heard any word about Aspen?"

"The girl you came here with?" Nina asked.

"Yes. My girlfriend and my partner. I'm not leaving without her. Even if I have to stay behind."

"A lot more is at stake right now. You can always use the device to go back now that it's going to work both ways."

"We both know Strucker won't allow that. He'll find a way to make sure we can't use it again. We need to find her now."

"All right. I'll see what I can do, but I'm limited. We're very isolated out here."

"Where are we exactly?" Steve asked.

"Outside of Munich," Nina told him. "But basically in the middle of nowhere."

"I wish I knew where she was." Steve felt frustration that he had no way of finding Aspen. She could be anywhere. "I know she was sent back but why wouldn't she have been with me?"

"Maybe there was somewhere else she was meant to be."

"What do you mean?"

"Strucker knew right where you would be somehow. He sent me to collect you. Maybe Aspen was meant to be somewhere else just like you were meant to be there. Strucker needed you to finish his device, and you need him to get back."

"I didn't give him the information to finish the second device, did I?" Steve asked, dismayed at the thought.

"No. This was something he thought up in his time here. You had no hand in that," Nina assured him. "I've been trying to slow the process down any way I can without him getting suspicious, but there's nothing I can do now. He's too close."

"You mentioned I needed to be there as in New York. Why?" Steve asked, remembering her earlier words. How had Strucker known he'd be there?

Nina sighed, and Steve thought she might be growing tired of his questions, but then she replied, "You made the choice not to intervene when you saw your past self getting beat up and more importantly you didn't tell James Barnes about his future."

"So it was some sort of a test?"

"You tell me. Look, all I really know is that we need to get home back to our own time without upsetting the past. You made the right choice even if your friend does get hurt. Too many things could have gone wrong if you'd told him."

"It could make the difference between him living and dying!"

"Look, I know you're hurting. You've been through a lot and that couldn't have been easy seeing your friend again, but we don't have time for you to get all emotional here. There's more at stake."

"What can I do?" Steve felt utterly useless in his cell.

"Nothing for now. I can handle this. If you go traipsing around the castle, Strucker will notice."

"I can't just sit here and do nothing! Not when Aspen is out there somewhere. Wait…" Steve looked around for his jacket and found it under the bed. He dragged it out and stuck a hand in the pocket, pulling out his cell phone. "Is there any way to get a signal with this thing?" he asked. "I can try to call her or send her a text."

"Well you won't get a signal down here." Nina looked thoughtful. "The tower. We get radio signals. I think you could get reception there."

"How do I get there?"

Nina bit her lip. "Promise me you won't get caught?"

"If I do, I'll deny you had anything to do with it."

"They'll know."

"Then I won't get caught," Steve promised. "I need to send her a message."

"I don't suppose you'll let me do it."

"She needs to know it's me and I need to see if she replies."

"Fine." Nina passed Steve a key. "Make sure this cell gets locked when you get back. Put the key on your tray. Hidden of course. I'll collect it tomorrow morning. Strucker should be in his lab until late, so after I leave would be a good time." She gave Steve detailed instructions for how to get to the tower. "Get back as soon as you can and don't take any detours. He has men stationed here. You can't afford to get caught."

"I won't," he assured her.

"Good." Nina turned to leave. "I need to check in with Strucker and see what progress he's made. I'm going to figure out a way to stall him if I can. We might be able to buy Aspen a few days to get here, but I'm not waiting any longer."

"I understand."

He watched Nina leave, feeling the weight of the key in his hand. He'd lost his appetite in his eagerness to try sending Aspen a message so he pocketed his phone and the key and left his cell. The corridor was less intimidating than before when he'd still had poison running through his veins. The dust in the air tickled his lungs and nearly made him cough, but he needed to stay quiet and forced the sensation down. When he reached the door at the end of the hall, he opened it slowly and headed toward a set of stairs to the left. His footsteps echoed on the metal stairs, but no one came running to investigate the sound. Though he weighed less, his balance wasn't the same as it had been with the Super Soldier Serum and he found himself taking special care to keep his feet moving lightly. A door at the top of the stairs led into another section of the castle. The carpeted halls made moving stealthily easier, and Steve quickly made his way down the hall. The wall on the right side opened up and overlooked the laboratory where he'd wandered into yesterday. Where his serum was taken from him. He saw a few men working down there, running scans on machinery that looked a little too advanced for the 40s. He carefully skirted around the open area and found his way to a narrow set of stairs at the other end of the hall.

From there the stairs climbed up and up, and his legs began to ache from the exertion. He missed his old body. He could have made the climb in a quarter of that time without wheezing by the end. A flat wooden door was set into the ceiling and he pushed it open and found himself on top of one of the castle's towers. Around him was a desolate landscape shrouded in night. He couldn't see far, but Nina had said there wasn't anything _to_ see. Steve pulled his phone out of his pocket and looked to see if he had a signal. There was nothing so he started circling the tower trying to find a signal. Finally two bars appeared, and Steve hastily opened a new message to send to Aspen. _I'm in Germany at Strucker's castle. He's working on fixing his time machine. It can only send people back in time, so future Strucker is stuck here until he fixes it. I don't know where you are, but get to Germany as quickly as you can. I don't know exactly where I am, but maybe you can track my phone signal. Please be safe. _

He pressed send and waited anxiously as the message took its sweet time sending. Finally it went through. He waited for over two hours for a reply, but none came. Either Aspen had lost her phone or she wasn't somewhere where she could receive a signal. He decided to hide his phone somewhere up on the tower so that it could receive a message if Aspen replied. The castle showed signs of wear and several of the bricks in the walls were chipped and loose. He found a particularly loose brick and pried it out with his fingertips. He set his phone inside and slid the brick in, letting the edges protrude slightly. He felt like he was leaving his only link to Aspen behind, but there was no way he was receiving a message down in the dungeons he was supposed to be locked in.

He made his way back to his cell, skirting past the open room. The scientists were too wrapped up in their work to notice him. He locked himself in his cell and placed the key on the tray, hiding it within the crumbs of the bread. The broth had gone cold, but he forced himself to eat it anyway. He needed to keep up his strength. Just because he was smaller didn't mean he'd lost any of his skills. As he lay down on the cot to try to sleep, he felt a similar determination to when he'd tried so hard to join the Army rise up in him. Nothing was going to stop him from finding Aspen even if they were oceans apart. If Strucker did repair his machine before Aspen found him, Steve would stay behind. It wasn't about what time he belonged in; it was about Aspen and belonging with her. He'd never abandon her out of her time. He just wondered where she was and if she was looking for him too.

…

Aspen pushed the door open and entered Schmidt's study. It was austere and just the way you might imagine an office in a castle. Bookshelves lined the wall on one side from floor to ceiling and the lush, red carpeting was cushiony as she walked across it. A hardwood desk sat on the other side of the room in front of a set of wide windows. The drapes were shut tight against the night, and the room was dark save the lamp on the desk that had been left on. Instead of leaving the room immediately, Aspen looked around. The door in the wall she had just come through was invisible if you didn't know it was there. A painting of a man sat on the wall, and she realized she'd been staring through the eyeholes from the other side. There were papers on the desk, and Aspen looked down at them. They were all written in German, however, and she couldn't read them. Her fingers touched the cuff, and she wondered if she'd be able to read them if she took it off. Was it worth the risk? They knew what their mission was. She wasn't here to learn anything more.

But Aspen was curious, and she wasn't content to just leave the room. She released the cuff and stared hard at the papers. The German words didn't make any more sense than they had before, but as she carefully shuffled through them, she found something she could at least understand. It was a file depicting a woman and a young girl and boy. The two children looked to be twins, perhaps eight. The three of them smiled at the camera. Down below it showed a very different picture. They were ragged and dirty and standing inside some sort of fenced compound. Someone had taken a red pen and crossed out the picture. Aspen saw names, but the one that stood out was Erskine. This was Doctor Erskine's family. She'd heard Schmidt telling Reinhardt that Erskine's family was dead, but somehow seeing their photos took Aspen's breath away. She snapped the cuff back onto her wrist suddenly not wanting to read any of these documents. She brushed them back into a pile and headed toward the door. Voices beyond stopped her in her tracks. Someone was coming.

Aspen looked around frantically, her eyes settling on the heavy drapes. It was a cliché place to hide, but she had seconds. She bolted across the room, the thick carpeting muffling her footsteps. She slid behind the drapes just as someone entered the room. She heard someone thumbing through papers and then silence as if they'd found what they were looking for. Instead she heard the papers slam back down on the desk with a curse.

"Brodbeck!" the voice shouted. "Come here!"

Aspen didn't dare move as more footsteps came toward the room. "Yes, Herr Schmidt?" the voice of Brodbeck answered right outside the door.

"I thought the maids were given strict orders not to touch my office."

"Yes, Herr Schmidt. They were."

"Then why has my desk been rearranged and dusted?"

Aspen let out a silent sigh of relief. She hadn't left anything amiss.

"I don't know. We gave strict orders. I'll speak to Frau Furhmann at once," Brodbeck said. "She can question the maids."

Aspen's relief was cut short by his words. She needed to get _out_ of this office and back down where she belonged. She might not have been the one cleaning in Schmidt's office, but she suspected snooping was considered a worse crime. She didn't dare try the passage again, so she would have to take the door. She thought about the windows for a crazy second, but with no gear, she could hardly hope to scale down a castle wall.

"I am not to be disturbed the rest of the night," Schmidt ordered. "Find the girl and deal with her."

"Of course Herr Schmidt." Aspen heard retreating footfalls and then the door shut behind them. She pushed out of the draperies and opened the door. She saw the receding forms of Schmidt and Brodbeck. When they were out of sight she shut the door quietly behind her and tiptoed along the corridor until she reached the stairs. She could see Brodbeck heading toward the kitchens and she scurried down the stairs and into the room she had been cleaning before. Sitting on the table in the center of the room was her duster. Aspen approached it like it was a cobra waiting to strike. Someone knew she was sneaking around the castle where she ought not be, but who?

…

"Was it not made clear that you were to leave Herr Schmidt's study?" Frau Furhmann said to the maids as they lined up downstairs. Aspen stood silently next to Peggy trying to look innocent. "One of you was up there recently. You dusted his desk and rearranged his possessions."

The other girls remained silent, and Aspen could see the fear clearly written on their faces. What would happen to the girl who was guilty of this? Aspen knew better than to think she wouldn't be punished.

"I will find out," Frau Furhmann snapped. "It will be better for you if you speak up now. Hold your tongue and the consequences will not be pleasant."

A girl standing next to Aspen was trembling, guilt written all over her face. As soon as Frau Furhmann set eyes on her, the girl started sobbing. "It was me Frau Furhmann! I'm so sorry! I was in my room, ill, when you gave the instructions not to go into the study. By the time I heard, I'd already dusted the desk. I didn't take anything, I swear!" The girl was shaking uncontrollably, and it took a great test of will for Aspen not to comfort her. Frau Furhmann looked unimpressed.

"The master was very upset," she said. The girl sobbed harder. "You will come with me. The rest of you go to bed. You are not to leave your rooms under any circumstances tonight."

She hauled the sobbing girl with her. As soon as the door shut behind her, the other girls started whispering in frantic German. Peggy and Aspen exchanged a look before retreating to their room.

"That was horrible," Aspen said. "What do you think will happen to that poor girl?"

"I'm not sure. Doctor Erskine has to be our first priority but if we succeed, we can try to save her. Maybe Frau Furhmann will scold her and that will be the end of it." They both knew that wasn't likely, but it was impossible to say what would happen to the poor girl for such a simple error.

"I understand."

"We can't risk the mission. More is at stake if that serum gets in Red Skull's hands."

"You're right."

"Try to get some sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to try to find where they're keeping Doctor Erskine." Peggy turned out the light, and she and Aspen lay down on the small, creaky bed. Aspen thought she'd never fall asleep in the cold, unfamiliar room, but with Peggy next to her, she felt completely safe. She was fast asleep when the screams started from deep inside the castle.


	12. Escape Plan

**Author's Note: **Nearly finished! I've got two and a half more chapters finished after this and one or two planned after that. Then we are on to A Game of Heroes which I will definitely update more frequently! I've got it started, but I'll get enough written to post frequently before I start posting.

* * *

><p><strong>Escape Plan<strong>

Aspen and Peggy jolted awake as the screaming began. It was deep within the castle but somehow seemed to echo everywhere all at once. Aspen remembered Reinhardt and Frau Furhmann's words: _"You do not ask questions, you do not question anything you hear or see. You will hear sounds in the night. You will wonder what they are. You will not question them."_

Peggy's eyes were wide as they met Aspens. "He's taken the serum," she said. "Schmidt has taken the serum."

There was no other explanation for it. Aspen had known it was going to happen, but hearing those screams… There was something inhuman about them and she wondered if Steve had screamed the same when he had been injected. She cringed, feeling sick to her stomach at the thought. Perhaps this injection hurt more because the serum was not yet ready. She had to believe that because she didn't want to think about Steve being in this much pain.

"There's nothing we can do about it," Aspen told Peggy. "It was inevitable." Without a Red Skull there would be no Captain America, and she and Steve would never have met.

Peggy seemed to accept Aspen's words, and they sat huddled together until the screaming quieted and the castle was left in a brittle silence. Aspen didn't fall back asleep that night, and the next morning she saw she wasn't the only one who hadn't slept well. The other maids had red eyes, and even Frau Furhmann looked on edge.

"To your work, girls," she told them. No one dared to ask any questions.

Since they were not allowed upstairs until later, Peggy and Aspen helped in the kitchen. When the clock struck noon, Brodbeck clumped downstairs and spoke to Frau Furhmann who handed him a list. Peggy leaned close to Aspen and whispered, "I'm going to have a look around while everyone is down here. Cover for me?"

"Isn't that too dangerous?" Aspen asked. "If anyone sees you upstairs-"

"They won't. Brodbeck is going into the nearest village for food and supplies. He shouldn't be back for a few hours and he mentioned that Reinhardt is with Schmidt and will be requiring lunch brought to the room. Frau Furhmann is delivering it, so after she leaves, I'll slip out of the kitchen. You need to distract the girls and make sure Frau Furhmann doesn't notice I'm missing."

Aspen nodded. "Are you sure?"

"It's my job," Peggy said simply, and Aspen realized it was hers too.

"Of course, you're right. I'll distract them and make sure no one notices you're gone. You can count on me."

Lunch was prepared, and Peggy and Aspen watched as Frau Furhmann put together a tray and headed toward the stairs. "Let me get the door for you," Peggy said, hurrying ahead of the woman. Aspen turned to the other girls. They were busy cleaning the kitchen, but they might notice Peggy slipping out the door. Just as Frau Furhmann disappeared, Aspen leaned against the counter and knocked a small pot to the floor. The metal clanked loudly on the floor, reverberating around the room. All eyes fell on her. Aspen bent down to pick it up, trying to act every bit the meek girl she was playing. Peggy disappeared, and no one noticed. Now she just had to get back in without anyone noticing and not get caught along the way. Aspen felt like she should be out there too, but she knew if both of them went missing suspicions would be aroused and there would be no one to cover for them. This was Peggy's mission after all. She'd done it before without any help.

After Frau Furhmann left, the girls broke their silence and started whispering in German. Aspen wished she could understand. One of the girls glanced over at her as if reading her mind. "You can't understand German can you?" she asked.

"My father spoke English," Aspen said quietly, remembering to speak with an English accent but with a hint of German like how Peggy had spoken. It came out a bit garbled, but the girls didn't seem to notice.

"It's a shame," another said. "To not know the language of your home country." Aspen nodded hoping that they'd continue to speak in English. "We were speaking of Greta, the girl who was fired last night."

"What did they do to her?" Aspen asked, widening her eyes.

"We don't know." The girls looked at each other. "It's happened before. They disappear."

"We're worried about her. She didn't mean anything by cleaning Herr Schmidt's study."

"It did seem harsh," Aspen agreed. "Would they put her in the dungeons?"

The girls shivered. "I hope not," one said. "No one comes back from those dungeons. At least not that I've heard."

"Has anyone ever been down there? I mean to clean?" Aspen asked.

The girls all shook their heads, eyes wide and fearful. "No! We're not allowed down there, and you couldn't pay me enough to clean down there."

"Where's your sister?" one of the girls asked abruptly, noticing Peggy's absence. "Eva, right?"

"She had a headache, so she's lying down. She gets these terrible migraines."

"Just make sure she's up on her feet by night. Frau Furhmann doesn't take excuses."

"I will." The girls went back to their chores, and Aspen busied herself as best she could, casting glances at the door upstairs every few minutes. Frau Furhmann reappeared after a short while, and the conversation died instantly. She didn't ask after Eva, and soon it was the girls' downtime before dinner preparation began. Aspen stayed near the door just incase until Frau Furhmann shooed her away. Aspen sat on the bed in the room she and Peggy shared and anxiously tapped her feet against the floor feeling useless. It was as dinner preparations began that Peggy appeared at the door, startling Aspen out of her worrying.

"Peggy! Are you okay? Did anyone notice you?" she asked, jumping to her feet.

"I'm fine. No one saw me." She sat down on the bed, brushing away some dust from her shoulders. "I found Erskine," she said finally.

Aspen sat down on the bed next to her. "Tell me everything," she said. Peggy took a breath and began her story.

…

Peggy watched from the shadows of the hall as Frau Furhmann made her way upstairs, expertly balancing the dinner tray. The hallway was devoid of all sounds other than the sharp clicking of her shoes on the stone. Peggy waited until she was out of sight before darting across the hall and toward a set of stairs that led downward toward the dungeons and, she hoped, the laboratories. The screams the night before had come from this direction, and she was quickly rewarded by a set of doors at the end of a long passage that led into a large laboratory. It was empty, but there were clear signs that it had been used recently. Broken glass from bottles and cabinet fronts littered the floor and a heavy chair had been hurled across the room to make a sizable dent in the wall. Peggy ran her fingers over the mark. One of the features of the Super Soldier Serum was super strength. It would appear Schmidt had gained that. She searched for any of Erskine's research but there was nothing on paper. She could see attempts to replicate it, but most of those had scratch marks and were clearly unfinished.

There were voices down the hall, and Peggy hurried across the room, crouching behind an overturned table. Reinhardt entered with another man who was dressed in a white lab coat.

"How is he?" the man in the lab coat asked.

"His body is trying to decide whether or not to accept the serum," Reinhardt replied. "He's in pain. But he's also stronger."

"So the serum worked?"

"That is our hope."

"What of Erskine? He refuses to create more. He'd rather die than give Hydra what it wants."

"Then perhaps his usefulness has run its course. Enough of this gentle treatment. We only need his brain to tell us the formula. Other parts…arms, legs…those he doesn't need."

The man in the lab coat smiled, and Peggy felt a sickening clench in her stomach. She needed to get Erskine out quickly. She'd find him, speak to him if she could, and make her plan. Tomorrow night they would make their escape.

"Well, it remains to be seen anyway," Reinhardt said. "When Herr Schmidt is feeling more himself he can make that decision."

"He _is_ strong," lab coat said, looking at the overturned chair.

"Yes. Imagine an entire army of Super Hydra soldiers. We'd be unstoppable," Reinhardt said, a glimmer in his eyes.

"Unstoppable," the other man echoed.

They spoke of Hydra's future a little more before turning and leaving the lab. Peggy rose from her hiding place and left the room. She took another turn and found another staircase. The air turned cold and musty the further down she got, and she knew she had found the lowest level of the castle.

The dungeons were as you might expect. Dirty, dim, and dank. Peggy brushed aside some cobwebs as she entered, letting her eyes adjust to the new lighting before going further. It was utterly silent save the repetitious dripping of water somewhere beyond. She proceeded cautiously, looking around the barred cells.

"Hallo?" someone called out from beyond. A man.

"Doctor Erskine?" Peggy asked in a loud whisper.

"Yes, who is that?" he responded in English.

"My name is Peggy Carter, and I'm an agent of the British Secret Intelligence," she said as she reached his cell and peered in. "I'm here to rescue you."

The doctor was sitting on a wooden ledge that came down from the wall on chains. There was no pillow or blanket, and he was huddled in his dirty jacket. His round glasses were cracked, and there was a gash on his cheek. "Then my life is in your hands, Agent Carter," he said.

"Schmidt took the serum?" Peggy asked.

Erskine closed his eyes and nodded. "I refused over and over, but he threatened my family… I had no choice but to make it."

"I understand." He didn't realize his family was dead. Peggy had gotten the files when she'd been given this mission. His family had been sent to a concentration camp where they had died from a typhus outbreak in 1937. "I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you this, but your family…they didn't make it." It was better not to let him have false hope. He couldn't protect them anymore.

Erskine didn't look surprised though he took his glasses off and wiped his eyes. "Somehow I knew. Schmidt is a monster. He must be stopped at all costs."

"He will be. For now I need to focus on getting you out of here. You're in danger. They're growing impatient. They won't hesitate to hurt you further."

"I'm not afraid of pain. They've taken everything from me."

"But they can continue to take knowledge. Knowledge like that in Hydra's hands is extremely dangerous. We can't let that happen."

"No, you're right. The serum Schmidt took was imperfect. I don't know what it will do to him, but the serum in its perfected state could be catastrophic in the hands of Hydra."

"I'm going to get you out tomorrow night," Peggy promised. "I need to figure out how to break you out and where to take you. I have a plane that will pick us up. Is there anything you can tell me about the castle that might help us escape?"

"They come down twice a day to feed me," Erskine told her. "I don't know what time. I can't tell time down here."

"Who comes down here?" Peggy asked.

"An older man. I think he might be one of the servants."

"Brodbeck." Peggy filed this into her mind. "Anything else?"

"Yes, another man. Reinhardt is his name. He's come down here to threaten me. Last night he came down here to tell me that the serum had failed. He said that the resulting…disfigurement would result in my execution. I told him it was not the serum that failed but the man. Schmidt is not the intended recipient for the serum. His intentions will only ever be evil."

"What disfigurement? Did he say?"

"No, he did not. It must have happened after Schmidt locked himself in his room. I was only there long enough to see him inject himself and then hurl an examination chair across the room with inhuman strength when the pain set in."

"He needs to be stopped, but that's not something I'm equipped to do right now. We don't know what exactly to expect. Will he survive the serum?"

"Unfortunately, I think so. He is determined."

"I'm going to come back tomorrow night," Peggy told him. "I'm going to get you out of here."

Erskine took a step forward, looking at her imploringly. "You must be careful," he told her. "The castle may seem empty, but it isn't. Schmidt has guards everywhere with weaponry I've never seen before. You took a great risk in coming here."

"It was worth it," Peggy assured him.

"There's someone else down here. A girl. I think she might have been a maid. She's on the other end and doesn't speak much. I hear her crying."

"I think I know who she is," Peggy said, casting her eyes down the way. "I'll get her out too." She gave Erskine her promise and moved off to the girl. The maid looked up at her in surprise.

"What do you want?" she asked. "You're not supposed to be down here."

"I'm going to get you out," Peggy told her. "Both of you."

"How?"

"I haven't figured out all of the details yet," Peggy told her. "But I have help. Don't worry."

"If you get caught then we'll all die," the maid said.

"Then I won't get caught." Peggy spoke steadily, but she couldn't deny the twinge of nerves she felt. Two lives were counting on her. "Look for me tomorrow night. Not a word of any of this."

"Of course not. They'll kill me if I stay here," the girl said. "They're all monsters."

…

Peggy made her way back to the kitchen. She'd been away long enough and she needed time to think. She needed a foolproof plan because she only got one shot at this. The grandfather clock in the front hall was striking five, and dinner preparations would be under way. She pushed the door open to the kitchen and peered in. Everyone's attention was on the preparation, and she slipped in, unseen.

…

"So how do we rescue them?" Aspen asked when Peggy had finished her story. She thought back to when she, Steve, and Clint had infiltrated Zemo's castle.

"We need a way to ensure there are minimal people between here, the dungeons, and our escape out," Peggy told her.

Aspen wished she knew how Peggy had done it before, but it seemed like an impossible task looking at it now.

"So after everyone has gone to sleep?" Aspen asked.

"But the maids clean when everyone else is asleep. We could slip away, but Brodbeck and Furhmann might get in the way. I'll send a message to Howard so he'll be there tomorrow. We need to get to the roof so he can pick us up directly. That will take some careful timing." She pulled out her small radio that extended from her hairbrush. She set it to a frequency and the radio began to crackle. "Howard? Come in. Howard?"

"Peggy, are you ready already?" Howard's voice came faintly onto the other line.

"Tomorrow night at the stroke of seven," Peggy told him. "Land on the roof of the castle. The northwest tower."

"You've seen Erskine?"

"Yes, I've spoken to him. We need to move quickly."

"What about Schmidt?"

"He's…indisposed. He took the serum and it's affecting him rather badly. He shouldn't be a problem."

"Be careful, Peggy. Never underestimate Hydra," Howard warned. Aspen could hear the concern behind his words.

"I won't."

"Your little friend still there?" Howard asked.

"Yes, she's here," Peggy said, smiling at Aspen. "She's been a big help." Aspen wasn't sure about that, but she appreciated Peggy's words. "I'll see you tomorrow, Howard."

"Seven sharp. Good luck."

Peggy shut off the radio, and turned to Aspen. "All right," she said, taking a deep breath. "Here's what I'm thinking…"


	13. Red Skull Reborn

**Red Skull Reborn**

Aspen told Peggy about the secret passageway in the sitting room, and Peggy had immediately asked to see it that night when the maids came out to clean. "There's something I need to get," Peggy told her. "It won't take me long, but will you cover for me?"

"Of course."

"There must be a back staircase that leads down to the laboratory. I can hardly go the way I went last night. Brodbeck has been guarding that door like a watchdog."

"He did seem on edge tonight," Aspen agreed. "Are you sure no one saw you?"

"Do you think I'd be standing here if they did? You saw what they did with the maid who cleaned Schmidt's office."

"Good point. I'll make sure no one closes you off." Peggy had frowned in concern when Aspen had told her that someone had shut her in the night she'd gone exploring.

"It means someone might suspect us," Peggy had told her. "We can't get found out. We can't afford that."

"We won't" Aspen had assured her. "It was probably just a mistake. Peggy hadn't looked convinced, but now Aspen was standing alone in the room, secret passageway propped slightly open by a thin book. If you didn't know where the panel was, you wouldn't have noticed the slight opening save the chilly current of air leaking from it. Aspen rolled up her sleeves and knelt before the fireplace, sweeping up the ashes from the stone hearth. A few hours before, Peggy had told Aspen her plan.

Exactly six plates went upstairs every night for dinner. Reinhardt, Schmidt, and the lab workers. Peggy had casually asked one of the maids who helped ready the food about the recipients of the meal. The maid had been upstairs once when Frau Furhmann had twisted her ankle. Schmidt was still confined to his room, so only five plates had gone up tonight. The maids ate downstairs after the masters upstairs had been served. Brodbeck and Furhmann ate downstairs after the masters were finished with their meal. It was very routine, and Aspen realized quickly the point Peggy was trying to make. As helpers downstairs, they had access to all of the food that was served to the residents of the castle.

"Sleeping potion," Peggy had told her. "Something to knock them all out so we have full access to the castle. The guards take dinner in their quarters, but I'm not sure when they eat. Brodbeck deals with them directly. We might need to take a few of them out, but I don't think that will be a problem."

"I can handle a few guards," Aspen agreed.

"The upstairs is served at six. The dirty dishes are usually brought back down about six thirty."

"Won't Brodbeck and Furhmann notice if their masters start dozing off at dinner?"

"Not if they're already asleep," Peggy had replied. "We make sure they're dosed first. I noticed Frau Furhmann and Brodbeck share a drink in her office before dinner. If they're indisposed then some of the maids would need to fill in during dinner."

Aspen smiled. "Have any in mind?"

"We'll be able to see when everyone upstairs dozes off."

"How long will it last?" Aspen asked.

"I don't think more than an hour which is why we must be quick after they drift off. It will take a short while for the potion to take effect, but once it does we should have nearly an hour to get Erskine out. Brodbeck has the keys to the dungeons. The maid is down there too. I promised we'd get her out."

"Good. I was hoping we could save her too."

"We'll stick together," Peggy told her. "We can't risk getting separated, and I might need you to cover me while I get Erskine and the girl out. Erskine is weak."

Aspen beamed. "You can count on me," she'd promised Peggy. She wished so badly she could tell Steve that she was helping Peggy – he was the one person who would understand what this meant to her. Instead she kept her head down and continued to clean while Peggy procured the sleeping potion.

She'd nearly cleaned the entire room now, and Peggy wasn't back yet. She cast a glance at the secret passage and then poked her head outside the room. Movement caught her eye and she looked upstairs to see Peggy standing in the shadows. She waved her hand when she caught Aspen's eyes and motioned toward Brodbeck. The butler was standing in the front hall near the base of the stairs blocking Peggy's way down. Peggy needed a distraction.

"S-sir?" Aspen called out to Brodbeck. The butler's eyes drifted to her. "Can…can I have a word?" She forced her voice to tremble.

He stepped toward her. "What is it…?"

"Elsa," Aspen volunteered.

"What can I do for you, Elsa?"

"It's just…I saw one of the maids and I think she was up to no good," Aspen said. "Can I have a private word?" She nodded to the sitting room.

"Of course." Brodbeck's eyes hardened. "I had similar suspicions." He entered the room, keeping his back to the door. "Now then, tell me what you've seen, young lady."

"It's…it might be nothing, but I want to prove that I'm trustworthy," she said, widening her eyes innocently.

"That's a good girl. Whom do you suspect?" There was a hunger in his eyes, and Aspen repressed a shiver. Did he think she was that eager to sell out her fellow maids?

"Well, I don't know her name. I just saw one of the kitchen helpers taking seconds after dinner. She snuck them into the pocket of her apron when Frau Furhmann wasn't looking."

She watched Brodbeck's sympathetic expression turn exasperated. "That's all you had to tell me?" he asked. Aspen saw Peggy walk past behind the butler's back with a mouthed 'thank you.'

"Yes, sir. I thought it was something you should know."

"That is not my concern. Take it up with Frau Furhmann if it concerns you," he said disgustedly. "Simple girl," he muttered as he left the room. Aspen glowered at his back. Peggy hurried into the room with an apology to Brodbeck.

"Thank you," she repeated when she and Aspen were alone. "I went to go back through the study, but I heard voices in there. I waited for half an hour to see if you'd come out of the room. That silly butler wouldn't move."

"Did you get it?" Aspen asked.

Peggy pulled two small vials out of the pocket in her apron. "I mixed it up myself. It should knock them out for enough time."

"Do we just sprinkle it on their food or in their drinks?"

Peggy nodded. "It will blend in so no one will know."

"Good." Aspen pulled the book out from the passage and it shut quietly. "I can't wait to be rid of this horrid castle and the horrible people in it."

"Me neither."

They finished their chores and went back to their room to get some sleep. The cold castle was starting to feel nightmarish and it felt like much longer than two days that they'd been living within its unforgiving walls. Aspen missed her apartment back in DC, missed the sound of traffic and the feel of sunshine. Most of all she missed Steve. There was an ever-widening hole inside of her and a gnawing fear that came with having no idea where he was or how to find him.

"Do you believe that if two people love each other enough then nothing, not even time and distance, can keep them apart?" Aspen asked aloud.

Peggy was quiet for a moment, and Aspen thought she might have fallen asleep. "I'd like to believe that," she replied after a second. "You speak of the man who came back in time with you."

"Yes."

"I think if he was from this time and found his way into the future – to you – he'll find his way back to you." Peggy's words heartened Aspen.

"I hope so," she said softly. "Because I'm not going back without him." Unless… What if he didn't _want_ to come back? He'd been ripped away from this life and now he had a second chance to live it. _Not the same though…_ There was already a Steve in this time. Peggy herself had told Steve that his life in the 21st century was a second chance. Aspen fell asleep dreaming of him, just out of reach, and awoke feeling cold and frightened in the early hours of the morning.

Peggy was already awake and dressed. She gave Aspen a smile. "Today's the day," she said. "Tonight we leave this castle behind." That night couldn't come fast enough.

…

Waiting was one of Aspen's least favorite activities. She supposed as an agent she should be better at waiting, but there was too much at stake here, and she just wanted to see the end of it all. Too much could go wrong. Every time Frau Furhmann glanced her way, Aspen was convinced they were found out. Morning and noon came and went. The small vial in her pocket was a reminder of her duties, and she felt a touch of courage.

Peggy found her way into Frau Furhmann's office and came out looking satisfied. The clock struck five and dinner preparations began. While the kitchen girls fixed the food, Frau Furhmann and Brodbeck disappeared into her office for a drink. Peggy and Aspen threw themselves into helping prepare the meal and since they were one girl short, the others said nothing. The soup was easy to drug, and Aspen poured the entire contents of her bottle into the soup on the pretense of stirring. She stowed the bottle back in her pocket and mixed the drug into the chicken and vegetables.

"Where is Frau Furhmann?" one of the girls asked.

"I'll go check on her," Peggy volunteered brightly. She disappeared into the office. Aspen helped the girls load up the tray. Peggy reappeared a moment later with a frown on her face. "Frau Furhmann isn't feeling well and isn't to be disturbed," she said. "She asked Elsa and I to take the food up tonight."

The girls looked surprised. "She did?" one asked doubtfully.

"I was surprised too. You're welcome to ask, but she's not feeling too kindly right now."

"Then you should go." The girls pushed the tray forward and stepped back. "Do you know what to do?"

"Yes, of course," Peggy said. "You girls eat up what's left before it gets cold. We'll take care of dinner and retrieve you when the dishes are done."

The girls didn't argue before spooning soup into the chipped bowls reserved for the downstairs. Aspen hurried ahead of Peggy to open the door while the agent carefully balanced the tray. "I have no idea how to serve a formal dinner," Aspen said. She looked down at her uniform and brushed off a spot of flour.

"Oh it's all show. One of us holds the pot while the other pours. One ladle-full should do. The bread goes on the center of the table."

"You pour. I'll probably spill soup on Reinhardt's lap if I attempt it," Aspen said. They reached the dining room and Aspen held the door open for Peggy. Five men were seated at the table, Schmidt's spot notably empty.

"Where is Brodbeck?" Reinhardt asked, narrowing his eyes.

"He sends his apologies, but he and Frau Furhmann ate something that did not agree with them for lunch. Nothing that was put in the soup. They think it was some pudding that had gone bad."

Reinhardt turned away looking disgusted. "Well, I suppose you'll do."

Aspen took the pot, giving Peggy a look over the top. Maybe food poisoning would have been more befitting of a punishment for these men. They moved along the table, Peggy expertly serving the soup. Aspen set the pot on the sideboard when they had finished and placed the basket of rolls. They stepped back and pretended to be part of the wall while the men ate. Aspen couldn't help but eagerly watch as they each took a sip of their soup. It took awhile as Peggy had predicted and the clock struck quarter after six before any of them began to look sleepy.

Aspen was beginning to feel anxious, but when she glanced at Peggy, the agent gave her a reassuring smile. A moment later one of the lab workers yawned. "Apologies," he said. "I must be working too hard."

"You're not the only one feeling tired," another said.

A moment later both collapsed against the table. Reinhardt was on his feet in a second, but before he could take one step, he fell to the floor. Everyone else was already drowsing away, one man with his face in his bowl of soup. Aspen took pity on him and lifted his head to move the bowl. Drowning in soup really was a bad way to go. "That was easier than expected," she said, turning to Peggy.

"That wasn't the hardest part," Peggy said. She nodded toward the door and they left the dining room heading toward the stairs Peggy had described the day before. She led Aspen down to the dungeons, cautious at every turn. The dungeons were devoid of guards, but Aspen wasn't sure if this was good or bad. It seemed _too_ easy and that usually meant something was waiting for them just when they thought they were out.

"Peggy?" came a voice from one of the cells. A grey-haired man with rounded glasses came up to the bars.

"Yes, I told you I'd be back. This is my friend Aspen."

"Hello," Aspen greeted the man who had turned Steve into a Super Soldier. She'd seen pictures of him, but seeing him in person left her feeling a little stunned. "Did you get the keys?" she asked Peggy.

Peggy pulled them out of her pocket. "Brodbeck didn't mind," she said, trying each key in the lock. Finally she found the right one and opened the door for the scientist. "Thank you," Doctor Erskine said, taking a step forward, Peggy reached out and caught him as he stumbled. "I haven't used my legs much since I've been here," he said apologetically.

"We need to get you to the roof. My ride is meeting us there in half an hour," Peggy told him. "Can you get that far? I'll help all I can."

"I can make it," Erskine said.

Peggy passed Aspen the keys. "Let's get the maid and we'll be on our way." Aspen hurried to the far cell where white hands gripped the bars.

"Thank you," Greta said hoarsely as Aspen unlocked the cell. "I thought I would die here."

She followed Aspen toward Peggy and Doctor Erskine. "Now for the hard part," Peggy said. "The guards are still active, and I don't have a weapon on me. Well, I have this." She pulled out a short blade that must have come from the kitchen. She handed it to Aspen. "Can you handle a blade?"

"That I can do." Aspen gripped it.

"Then lead the way."

It was a slow trip upwards though Doctor Erskine tried to go as quickly as he could. He'd cut his leg in the laboratory when Schmidt has thrown his fit, and the wound made it difficult to walk. Peggy supported him and Greta even helped when they ascended the stairs. Aspen's nerves were on edge, and she focused on any sounds of movement ahead. When they entered the main hall of the castle, she held up a hand. They stopped behind her, and Peggy pushed a small, round object into Aspen's hand. Aspen looked down to see that it was a compact. She opened it and the mirror inside clarified why Peggy had handed it to her. Aspen took a step forward and angled the mirror so that she could see above her to the railing on the second floor that overlooked the front doors. An armed guard stood there. She stepped back and held up a finger.

"Trust me," she said softly before pocketing the knife and stumbling forward into view. The guard looked down at her, aiming his gun straight at her heart. "Oh, help! I was delivering food to the prisoner and he got out!" she said. "He tried to attack me! He's still down there. I ran for my life!"

The guard sped down the stairs toward where she was standing. Aspen drew the knife and slashed at his hand as he passed. The guard cried out, dropping the gun. Peggy was there in a second, gun in hand. She cracked the butt against the guard's head and he slumped to the floor. She dragged him into the shadow of the staircase with Aspen's help and motioned for Erskine and the maid.

They made better time now that they'd met the first guard. Aspen didn't doubt that there were more. She held the knife tightly in her hand, but Peggy's newfound gun would be much more useful if they ran into more guards. "Please tell me there's an elevator somewhere," Aspen said when they'd all reached the second story.

"There is. This way." Peggy led them past Schmidt's office and down a hall Aspen had not yet explored. At the end there was a fancy, wood-paneled elevator. Aspen half expected it to play music. They all piled in but before Peggy could hit a button, there was a shout and gunfire. They all leapt back against the sides of the elevator as a spray of bullets hit the back wall. Peggy didn't hesitate to fire back. The retaliatory shower of bullets left three Hydra guards dead. Peggy pulled back into the elevator and hit the button that would take them up to the top floor of the castle.

Aspen had to admire how calm Peggy was. She might be an agent just like Peggy, but she was still working on the morals and duties that came with being an agent. Killing didn't come easily to her. Maybe it didn't come easily to Peggy either, but she didn't bat an eye when it came to doing her duty.

The elevator stopped, and Peggy aimed the gun out. "Clear." They followed her down a hallway past a line of doors. Aspen took the back, knife still in hand though it felt inadequate next to the Hydra gun that Peggy carried. Footsteps behind Aspen had her whirling around. Peggy was at her side in a second. To their surprise, Brodbeck rounded the corner, four Hydra guards in tow. Each held a gun.

"I knew there was something suspicious about the two of you," the butler said, scowling at Aspen and Peggy. "When Frau Furhmann started getting sleepy, I thought you might have been behind it so I pretended to sleep too. When you took my keys, I knew exactly what you were planning."

"Get to the roof," Peggy said to Erskine and the maid.

"After them!" Brodbeck shouted. "Capture the doctor alive. Kill the others."

Aspen glanced back to see that Erskine and the maid were rounding a corner. Peggy grabbed Aspen's arm, hauling her into an alcove that one of the doors was set into as the guards shot off a spray of bullets. Peggy fired back, and Aspen heard two bodies hit the ground. Two more went racing past in pursuit of Erskine. "Go get them," Aspen told Peggy. "I've got Brodbeck."

Peggy's eyes flitted down to the knife. "Take this." She tried to press the gun into Aspen's hands, but Aspen shook her head.

"I'm not big on guns," she said.

"Then you'll have to defend yourself in some other way." Peggy tapped the cuff on Aspen's wrist. "I believe in you," she said.

They left the safety of the alcove, and Peggy went in pursuit of the Hydra guards while Aspen turned to face Brodbeck. The butler aimed his gun at Aspen as she undid the cuff, letting it slide into her pocket. She felt a rush of powers, but this time it was concentrated. She heard gunfire down the hall, and tried not to worry about Peggy.

Brodbeck looked down at the knife still gripped in Aspen's hand and laughed. "Are you going to stop me with that little blade of yours?" His finger itched at the trigger of the gun he held.

"No." Aspen threw the knife aside. "I don't need a weapon. I am one."

Brodbeck narrowed his eyes in confusion, but before he could pull the trigger, Aspen gathered a surge of energy and threw it straight at his chest. His face registered shock as he flew backwards into the wall. He slumped to the floor, gun slack in his hand. Aspen stood panting for a moment, hardly believing what she had just done. She'd used her powers. She'd protected herself. She hadn't lost control. She smiled, feeling a new sense of power. She turned and ran in the direction Peggy had gone passing two dead Hydra guards along the way. The castle was like a maze, but raised voices ahead guided her to the left. She stopped short when she saw a row of Hydra guards facing Peggy. Erskine and Greta stood behind her. Aspen focused her powers on the guards and their weapons. She didn't know how strong she was – her powers were untested – but right now three lives were depending on her. She sent out a surge of power. All six guns flew out of the guards' hands, and a few of the guards were sent reeling. Peggy took advantage of the distraction and shot down the rest of the conscious guards. She turned to Aspen.

"You never said you could do that," she said with a smile.

"I didn't know I could," Aspen replied.

Erskine was staring at Aspen with interest while Greta regarded her with wary and frightened eyes. "Were you given some sort of serum, my dear?" Erskine asked.

"Something my parents created, yes," Aspen said. "It enhances my mental abilities."

"Fascinating. It saved our lives."

"We're not out yet. Where's the roof?" Somewhere down below the clock struck quarter to seven. At the same time a voice rang out behind them.

"What is going on?"

They turned around to find a man with his head wrapped in bandages. He was glaring at them, and his eyes connected with Erskine's. He growled angrily. "You! You did this to me!" he shouted. He gave the bandages around his face a tug and Aspen gasped despite herself. Greta screamed and fainted dead.

Aspen found herself facing none other than Red Skull. His skin had been seared off of his skull leaving red. Parts of the skin still clung to his face, and she could smell rancid flesh wafting off of him. His blue eyes were piercing as they sent waves of hatred toward Erskine. "I will kill you!" He charged toward them, and Aspen froze. She was standing straight in Red Skull's path, and he struck her as he passed. His strength sent her flying backwards. She hit the wall, and sparks danced in front of her eyes. The last thing she saw before her vision went black was Peggy shouting and sending off a spray of bullets while Red Skull grabbed Erskine by the throat. She feebly tried to use her powers, but blackness overtook her eyes and the buzzing in her head overwhelmed her.


	14. Brooklyn Bridge

**Brooklyn Bridge**

Steve managed to get to the roof the next few nights but found no message awaiting him. He was starting to feel frantic. This wasn't how their lives were supposed to go. They'd found a new start in DC, started a life together, and now they were separated over who knew how many miles. He had no idea how to find her. Nina hadn't found anything out about Aspen, but she had successfully stalled the machine a little longer by breaking off a vital piece when Strucker wasn't working on the machine.

"I can't do much more. Sometimes I think he already suspects me," she told Steve when she visited him in the dungeons.

"Right now you're our best hope, so don't endanger yourself more than you have to," Steve told her. "I could help if you got the serum working again. Strucker isn't a match for me then."

"Not yet. It's too dangerous," Nina had said.

He wasn't sure the machine was the only thing she was stalling, but right now she was the only one helping him, so he would have to trust her. He tried to convince himself that he didn't need the serum to be useful, but somehow sitting locked in his cell all he could think of was being rejected by the Army over and over and getting pushed down by bullies. Even if others had found him inadequate, he'd never really thought of himself that way. Now he felt useless. It wasn't a feeling he liked and he couldn't seem to convince himself that he could manage without the serum for a little longer. He knew Aspen would tell him that he was strong serum or no serum, but she wasn't here.

"Seems your friend is causing quite the stir over in the Bavarian Alps." A voice startled Steve out of his thoughts. He hadn't even heard Strucker enter the room. He stood, watching Strucker cautiously.

"My friend?" he asked, heart thumping loudly in his chest.

"Yes, the red-headed girl. Who knew she'd be so good at invading castles?"

"What do you mean?" Steve knew Strucker was baiting him, but he needed to know if Aspen was all right. What was she doing in a castle in the Bavarian Alps?

Strucker smiled, clasping his hands behind his back. "Rescuing Doctor Erskine," he said. "With Peggy Carter."

Steve's heart skipped a beat. "She's with Peggy?"

"Yes. Strange turn of events, but she must have been sent there for a reason."

"What reason?" Steve asked.

"I'm not sure yet. Let's just hope she doesn't change anything. That would be a pity."

Steve ground his teeth in frustration. "I need to get in contact with her," he implored.

"Oh, I think you've been trying," Strucker said, a smug smile forming on his lips. "You think I don't have eyes everywhere? I know that Nina has been helping you. You don't think I haven't figured out who she is by now? Please, Captain. Give me more credit that than." A sickening feeling had formed in the pit of Steve's stomach. "Don't worry. I'll let her run her usefulness first."

"If you know where Aspen is then bring her here!" Steve shouted.

"She's already gone," Strucker said simply. "They got away, or don't you know how the story goes?" He frowned. "Seems she didn't change anything after all. Pity. That might have made for an interesting future. Schmidt must have been in a rage to find his prisoner gone."

"Schmidt?" Steve said. "Red Skull?"

"Yes, didn't I mention it was his castle?"

"Where is she now?" Steve gripped the bars of the cell, but Strucker was already turning away.

"I don't know," Strucker said. "Let's just hope she got your message."

…

The ground was moving under Aspen. She opened her eyes, blinking in the darkness. The rumbling of an engine was all she could hear. She sat up and found herself in Howard Stark's plane. Peggy was sitting across from her with Doctor Erskine on her left. Both looked unharmed. Greta was sitting huddled in the back of the plane, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.

"What happened?" Aspen asked, trying to remember back to the castle. The last thing she remembered was Red Skull shoving her out of the way.

"Your friend put up quite the fight," Erskine said, looking over at Peggy. "She saved my life."

"Schmidt had the doctor by the throat and I couldn't get a clear shot, so I did the only think I could think of. I punched him in the face."

"You punched Schmidt in the face?" Aspen repeated.

"Yes, well, his skin was still sensitive," Peggy said modestly. "He didn't take that well. He started screaming like his skin was on fire. I woke up Greta, and we dragged you up to the roof. Howard was waiting there. We're on route to New York right now. We thought it would be safer to get Doctor Erskine off continent for awhile. There's an organization there that would like to help him turn the serum into a successful sample to be used for good and to fight Schmidt."

"I'm sorry I was unconscious at the end," Aspen said, feeling ashamed. "I could have gotten us all killed."

"It was you who saved us with your abilities. You shouldn't doubt yourself. Now get some sleep. We have a long flight ahead of us."

Aspen nodded, lying back down across the seats and letting exhaustion overtake her. She felt a sense of relief that the mission had been a success, but she still didn't know where Steve was or how to get home. A wave of homesickness washed over her. They were headed back to New York, but this New York wasn't home anymore. She closed her eyes and pretended for a moment that she was flying back to DC and that Steve would be waiting there for her.

…

The plane landed in New York, and Steve wasn't there. Peggy and Howard checked in at the headquarters that would be working with Doctor Erskine if he decided to accept the offer. Greta was taken care of as well, offered a position as a secretary and a new life. Aspen changed back into her 1940s clothes, clasped the cuff back on her wrist, and told Peggy she was going to take a walk. Now she found herself in Brooklyn, wandering familiar streets that she'd walked with Steve when he'd reminisced about growing up there.

Brooklyn Bridge rose up ahead, and Aspen found herself walking along the sidewalk past the traffic. She stopped on the middle, gazing up at the spider webs of cables that rose up toward the sky above her. She wasn't aware of time passing as she leaned her elbows on the railing and looked out over the East River.

"Are you all right?" a soft voice asked, startling Aspen enough to make her jump. She whirled around to see a boy standing there looking at her with worried eyes a shade of familiar blue. Aspen could only stare as Steve Rogers walked toward her. She'd seen pictures, of course, but seeing pre-serum Steve in person… He was small and she could see his cheekbones much more distinctly but there was a delicacy to his face that made him beautiful. His long lashes brushed pale cheeks, and his blonde hair was neatly combed to the side. "Miss?" He was looking at her inquiringly, the same height as her she now realized as he stood in front of her.

"Oh, yes, thank you," she said, finally finding her voice. "I've just got a lot on my mind."

"I didn't mean to bother you," Steve said, hesitance in his eyes.

"No, you didn't. I could use some company," she said. She wanted to drink him in, take in every feature on the familiar face, but she didn't want to frighten him away. "I'm Aspen," she introduced herself, holding out a hand. Steve took hers, and the skin of his palm was smooth and soft. Aspen didn't want to let go, but she forced herself to when the handshake was over.

"Steve," he said as if she didn't already know.

"I'm glad you came along, Steve," Aspen said. "I was feeling a bit lonely and lost, to be honest."

"Anything I can help with?" he asked.

"I've lost someone who means a great deal to me," she started. "He's not dead," she added at the look on Steve's face. "At least I really hope not. We got separated, and I don't know how to find him."

"Separated in New York?" he asked.

"No, not New York. I don't know where exactly. I know that sounds odd. Let's just say it's been a crazy few days."

"Well, can you call him?" Steve asked.

"Call…?" Aspen's hand went to her pocket where her cell phone lay. There hadn't been a strong enough signal for her to send any sort of message.

"There's a payphone down the street," he continued.

"Oh, of course. I could try that but I'm not sure he's near a phone. "

"Where did you last see him? Maybe he's still there looking for you," Steve suggested.

She had been in Germany. They'd been in that underground compound with that damned time machine. What if he was still there? What if the machine was still there? That could be her way home. She had no way of knowing though and a mistake could be costly. They were running out of time – somehow she knew this above all.

"You might be right," Aspen said, smiling.

"Well, wherever he is, I'm sure he's looking for you. A beautiful girl like you shouldn't be alone." He flushed at his own words, looking down at his hands. Aspen noticed he was holding something gold. He twisted it nervously in his fingers.

"Is that an engagement ring?" she asked when she got a quick glimpse of the object.

"Oh, not mine. Not for anyone. It was my mother's," Steve said hastily. "I-I lost her awhile back when I was young. I've kept it all these years because it's all I have left of her, but I'm having trouble making ends meet. I was headed to the jeweler to try to sell it." He looked ashamed. Aspen felt a rush of sympathy. She wanted to pull him into her arms and hold him close, but she forced herself to keep her distance.

"I'm sorry about your mom. I lost my dad very recently. It was incredibly difficult, and I didn't even know him that well."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that," he said. "It's never easy."

"Hey, look. You should hold onto that ring." Aspen dug out her wallet and pulled out four hundred dollar bills. Emergency cash for their original mission. It was useless to her now unless she ended up living here the rest of her life. She handed it over to him.

His eyes widened. "I can't take that!" he said, backing away from the money like it was poisonous.

"Steve, some day you're going to meet a very special girl, and you might want to have a ring handy. I don't need this money. I've got a good job, and I want to do a good deed. Please take it. Share it with your neighbors if it's too much. Just let me do this one small kindness."

He tried to protest, but she pushed the money into his hand. "Trust me," she said with a smile. "She'll be worth it."

She wanted to stay forever with this Steve even though he wasn't yet _her_ Steve, but she forced herself to walk away. As she walked, something in her pocket beeped and she pulled out her phone with a frown. Her heart stopped as she read the message that had finally, _miraculously_, arrived.

_I'm in Germany at Strucker's castle. He's working on fixing his time machine. It can only send people back in time, so future Strucker is stuck here until he fixes it. I don't know where you are, but get to Germany as quickly as you can. I don't know exactly where I am, but maybe you can track my phone signal. Please be safe. _

The message had been sent two days before. Aspen stared at it a second longer before hurriedly tracking the signal. If she couldn't track the signal, she could track the phone itself. She watched with bated breath as her phone traced his. Finally it beeped and showed an exact coordinate. Aspen recorded it mentally and hurried back to Peggy and Howard.

…

"I know where he is!" she exclaimed the second Peggy was in sight. She turned to look at Aspen, hope in her eyes. "I need to get to these coordinates back in Germany as soon as possible," she said, turning imploring eyes on Howard. He took the phone, gazing down at it curiously.

"Is this some sort of wireless radio?" he asked.

"Never mind that, just look at the coordinates," Aspen said.

"As soon as I'm fueled up, we can go," he said. "I can tell this is an emergency."

"It is. Thank you so much." She took back the phone, Howard watching it until it disappeared into her pocket. Always the inventor.

"I'm coming too," Peggy said.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. I want to see this through to the end," she said.

"Thank you. Both of you," Aspen said. "It's time I go home."

…

Across the ocean in a brick casket, another phone lighted up, a message written across the screen. The brick was removed, and a hand reached in to pull out the phone. The woman read the two-word message and pocketed the phone, hurrying down to the recipient. The two words read: _I'm coming._


	15. You'll Never Be Alone

**You'll Never Be Alone**

**September 13, 1923**

Growing up in Brooklyn had always been difficult but having his mom was what made it feel like home. Their tiny house was worn and drafty, but it didn't seem to matter as long as Steve had his mom to look after him. It was just the two of them. His father had died in the war before Steve had gotten to know him – he'd just been a baby at the time, hardly two months old. Sarah Rogers was the hardest working woman and the most loving mother Steve could think of. Despite the fact that they struggled to put food on the table and all of Steve's clothes were worn and mended over and over, he was happy. He was a small boy, frail and prone to illness, but whenever he was at home he never felt small. His mom never let him think he was. She inspired a determination in him, a will to keep fighting no matter what tried to get him down.

The kids at school made fun of him because the elbows of his jacket had patches and because he stuffed his holey shoes with newspaper to keep them from getting soaked when it rained. They pointed out that he couldn't afford new clothes, pointed out that he was poor. Steve was too young to understand why they thought this was any reason to make fun of him. He asked his mom when he came home from school that day. She was finished up for the day having worked half the night and morning at the hospital.

"Mom, why do people make fun of me because we're poor?" he asked, blue eyes bright with curiosity.

"Oh, Steve." Sarah came forward and ruffled his blonde hair back. At five, Steve showed a curiosity and understanding for the world that his peers didn't. He was an observer – he noticed things sometimes that even adults didn't. Sarah had always raised him to be kind and compassionate, but she didn't have to try hard to instill this – Steve was just _good_. She knew the boys picked on him at school but he didn't come home crying. It had taken her a long time to figure out the other boys weren't kind to him. Steve quietly took the bullying, but she knew he was no coward. She realized he simply didn't understand the unkindness they showed him because it had never occurred to him that anyone could be so cruel. His view of the world was still innocent, still optimistic, and she couldn't bring herself to change that.

"They just don't understand that being poor doesn't have anything to do with who we are. It's just a state of being. It just means we can't always afford new things. That's not what matters though. Being happy and loving each other are what matters." She knelt down so that she could look him in the eye. "Being good is what matters. You are _so_ good, Steve, and I'm so proud of you. Don't ever be ashamed because we're poor. It's not who you are."

He went to school the next day in his worn jacket and newspaper-lined shoes and walked straight past the bullies who jeered at him. They didn't understand, he told himself. He was happy with his life. They just didn't understand. Then something hit the side of his head.

Steve fell to the ground with the force of the rock that had been thrown at him. He'd always walked to school, taking the same route every day, but today the bullies stopped him a block before he reached it. He put a hand to the side of his head where he could already feel a welt forming.

"Look at how weak he is!" a boy a grade ahead of him jeered. The other kids leered down at Steve. _They don't understand_, he told himself. _They don't understand_.

"I heard your mamma is doing a little work on the side," the boy continued. "Filthy immigrant." He spat on the pavement.

_Immigrant_. Steve had heard that word before but never about his mom. He knew his parents had moved to New York from Ireland looking for a new life. The Land of Opportunity. He'd heard that phrase used to describe America. Lots of people had come here from different places in search of a new life.

"What do you have to say for yourself?" the bully continued, kicking at Steve's feet.

"You don't understand," Steve told him, his voice stronger than he'd expected.

"Don't understand what?"

"You don't understand me," Steve continued, getting to his feet. "You don't understand my family."

The boy turned to his flock. "Hear that? We don't _understand_ him or his family." He turned back to Steve and gave him a shove. Steve wobbled backwards. "Your mamma is a whore," he said. Steve didn't know what the word meant, but he knew it wasn't good. "My daddy told me that," the boy went on to say.

"It's not true." His mom worked long hours at the hospital to support them. She was his hero, not whatever this boy called her.

"Why else would she not wear her wedding ring?" the boy asked. "Her finger's bare."

Steve's cheeks heated. His mother had sold the gold ring to support them. She'd cried on her way to the jeweler though she'd tried to hide her red eyes from Steve when she'd returned to the house.

"That's right, your daddy's dead." Why was this boy being so mean? Steve didn't understand it. What had he ever done to deserve this? What had he ever done to this boy? "Daddy's dead, and mamma's a whore," the boy said in a chant. The other kids laughed.

Something cracked in Steve. The warm glow that always seemed to fill the world faded leaving the alley washed in greys – dirty and musty. It was like he was seeing it for the first time. No more illusions. The boy continued to tease him, and suddenly Steve wanted to make it stop, _needed_ to make it stop. With a cry, he threw himself at the boy, shoving him back. The boy tripped backwards, falling on his behind in surprise. He stared up at Steve. The other kids gasped.

"Well, little sickly boy has a back-bone after all." The bigger boy got to his feet suddenly towering over Steve. "I think it's time I taught you your place."

Sarah found Steve huddled behind a garbage tin in the alley an hour later. She pushed the bin aside and knelt in front of Steve. He tried to hide the bruises on his face and the tear in his jacket, but she saw them anyway, her mom-eyes taking it all in. "Oh, Stevie," was all she said. She knew that the illusion was shattered. She couldn't protect him from the world anymore. He'd seen it for what it really was. She just wished she could protect him from it. She gathered into her arms and carried him home.

"When the school called and said you weren't there, I knew something had happened to you," she said, setting him on a stool and wetting a washcloth to clean his face. Dried blood came away, but the bruises still blossomed. "What happened?"

"He didn't understand," Steve said. He was trying so hard not to cry. He was supposed to be stronger than this. As if sensing this, his mother wrapped her arms around him, pressing his head against her heart. He let go, tears flooding his eyes. His little body shook as his mother held him.

"You're safe now, you're safe," his mom said, stroking his hair. "I'm going to call the school and tell them what those boys did. What are their names?" she asked. Steve didn't answer. His mother gently pulled away to look him in the eye. "Stevie?"

He shook his head. If he told her and she called the school then those boys would think he was a coward. He wasn't a coward. He didn't want to run. "I want to deal with it on my own," he told her.

"Oh, Steve, you don't have to do that. You're so young. Right now it's my responsibility – and the school's – to stop it." But he refused to give the names. Sarah sighed heavily. "You're just as stubborn as your daddy," she said, ruffling his hair. "I can call in to work if you want me to." She had another shift in an hour, but Steve shook his head.

"I'll be okay," he said.

"Are you sure? I can stay," she said. He shook his head, and she smiled. "I'll call the school and tell them you won't be in today," she said. After she made the call she took out her sewing supplies and began to stitch up the tear in his jacket, humming a melody as she worked.

Steve went to school the next day but his mom insisted on walking him, leaving work early. They passed the boys who had bullied them, but Steve kept his eyes straight ahead. His bruises hadn't faded, but his mom had covered his face in some of her makeup to blend them in. He could tell she was unhappy about not knowing who had done this, and she disappeared into the principal's office after dropping him off. He knew she wanted to protect him, but he also knew that the bullying would persist unless he stood up to them. If he backed down then they'd see him as weak, as an easy target. He wasn't weak though. He was a fighter.

It became a sort of routine. When Sarah couldn't walk Steve to school, the bullies converged. But Steve didn't run. He never ran because he knew they would chase him. He usually ended up with a new bruise, but they were more selective about where they hit. The face was obvious, his chest and arms not so much. Steve defended himself as much as he could.

That afternoon he came home feeling satisfied. After a week of standing up to the bullies, they'd lost interest. They didn't see him as a target anymore. The game wasn't so fun anymore. He raced home, eager to tell his mom when she got home from work. To his surprise, she was already there. She always worked late on Thursdays, but she was home and in bed. A coughing wracked her body. She tried to smile at Steve, but another coughing fit overtook her. Steve hurried to fill a glass of water, bringing it over to her.

"Thank you, darling," she said after the coughing had subsided.

"Are you all right?" he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"I'll be fine. I just caught a cough. They sent me home from work because I couldn't stop coughing, but I'll be fine."

"Should I call the doctor?" Steve asked, knowing they couldn't afford it.

"No, no, I'll be fine. Just let me rest, and I'll be fine."

She did seem better the next day and went to work, but when Steve arrived back home from school she was in bed again, fast asleep. She looked gaunt and worn, and Steve wondered how long she'd been that way. He'd been so consumed with his own problems at school that he hadn't even noticed. He swore to take care of her and stayed by her side the next two days. She didn't go to work. When she wasn't asleep, the coughing wouldn't stop. Finally she let him call the doctor.

"Tuberculosis," he said after an examination. "I can give you some medicine for it."

Sarah hesitated, but finally nodded. The doctor told her how much it would cost, and she went over to one of the kitchen cabinets pulling out a cookie tin and pulling out the money for it. Steve realized that this was some of the money she still had left over from selling her wedding ring. He watched the exchange feeling helpless.

The medicine seemed to help, but it ran out quickly and the coughing returned. She couldn't work her usual shifts anymore, and the money tin was nearly empty. Steve had climbed up onto the counter to check one night after his mother had fallen asleep. That night he raided the house for anything to sell. He pulled out a cigar tin from under his bed where he kept all his valuables. It was mostly rocks and old photographs – nothing of monetary value. Then he came to his baseball cards. They had been his fathers and most of them were signed. He fingered through them, wishing he could have known his father. His mother had taken him to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium the year before, and it had been the best moment of his life. He wished he could relive that moment, bring back a happier time when the world had been filled with brightness and color and not this dim grey that had settled over the city.

He took his cards and waited until morning when his mom was still fast asleep before slipping out of the house and walking to the local pawnshop. The cards were worth more than he'd expected, and he sold them without regret. It occurred to him that the man might have given him less than what they were really worth, but to Steve the amount was enough to buy his mother more medicine. He ran back to the house and found his mother awake and coughing.

"Steve?" she called out to him between coughs.

"I'm here." He moved to the side of her bed. If possible she'd become gaunter over the last few days. Paler too after being shut away inside. Steve took her hand and held on tightly. "I sold Dad's baseball cards," he blurted, pulling out the money. "I can buy you more medicine."

"Oh, Stevie, you're so thoughtful." His mom reached up to brush his cheek. Her blue eyes were shot with red from sleepless nights. "Never change that."

"I'm going to look after you," Steve promised. "You're going to get better."

She smiled, closing her eyes. He thought she'd fallen asleep again but then the coughing started up once more. He filled glass for her but she was coughing too hard to drink. A spray of blood coated her hands a moment later. Steve felt himself begin to panic. He forced himself to stay calm.

"I'll call the doctor," he said, sprinting from the room. He grabbed the phone and dialed the number stuck to the front of the refrigerator. He waited impatiently for the operator to connect the call and when the doctor finally answered he had to ask Steve to slow down and repeat himself. Steve finally got the words out.

"I'll be right over," the doctor said.

His mother was still coughing in the other room and Steve paced helplessly until the doctor arrived. He went straight into Sarah's room and closed the door. Steve went to his own room and sat on the bed, staring at the wall. She was going to be okay, he told himself. The doctor was going to make her better. Only she'd gotten worse. He couldn't think about her getting worse.

"Steven?" The doctor stood in the doorway holding his doctor's bag. "Your mother would like to see you." He stepped back and let Steve pass.

His mom wasn't coughing anymore and the blood had been cleaned away. She held out her arms and he ran to her, carefully folding himself into her embrace.

"Are you going to be okay?" he asked, his voice trembling even though he was trying so hard to be strong.

"I want you to take this," his mother said, holding out a ring to him. "This was the ring your father gave to me when he asked me to marry him. More than that it was a promise that I'd never be alone. Even after he died, I still had you." She smiled at him and he tried – and failed – to smile back. "I want you to keep this as a reminder that you'll never be alone. Some day you're going to find a lovely girl to give this ring to and that same promise that she'll never be alone."

"But I'm not alone," Steve protested. "I have you."

"And you always will," she told him, kissing the top of his head.

…

The next morning she wouldn't wake. Steve held her hand and cried until the neighbors came to see what was wrong. They had to pry him away from his mother when he wouldn't let go, but letting go meant she was gone forever. Finally he went with them, leaving his house and the heaviness of death that filled it behind. The next few hours were a blur as his mother was taken from him. His neighbors took him under their wing, offering condolences he couldn't hear.

When the undertaker came to see about burial arrangements, Steve handed him the wad of money from his baseball cards.

"Are you sure?" his neighbor asked, eyes widening at the money. Steve nodded. They hadn't had the best in life, but his mom deserved the best in death.

…

It was a small funeral, but all their neighbors and Sarah's coworkers came. Even some of the children from his school were there with their parents. Steve saw the boy who had once bullied him. After the funeral, the boy cornered him while the adults had their backs turned.

"Now you're an orphan," he taunted. "A poor little immigrant orph-" He never got the rest of the word out. Steve's first flew through the air seemingly of its own accord and landed squarely on the boy's nose. There was a crunch and then the blood came gushing. The boy started howling and everyone turned to look. All eyes fell on Steve and his neighbors hurried to collect him without giving him a chance to say his final goodbye to his mother.

…

The next day some people from the local orphanage came to take him. They packed a suitcase with his few belongings and led him to a black car waiting at the curb. Orphan Steve. He had never felt so alone. He fingered the ring his mother had given him but it was just cold metal. An aching hole was growing in Steve's heart where his mother should have been.

The orphanage was cold and had its share of bullies just like school. It didn't feel like home, and Steve missed his mother so much he could hardly stand it the first few weeks. Steve was allowed to attend the same school but the familiarity did nothing to make him feel better. He had no friends and even the bullies avoided him at school these days. They didn't seem to keen to pick on someone who might punch back. He spent his lunches alone and walked to and from school alone. Then one day a boy with dark, unruly hair and pale blue eyes walked up to him during lunch and sat down. Steve hadn't seen him around before. He tensed, expecting another bully. There was nothing hostile in this boy's eyes though.

"I'm Bucky," the boy introduced. He smiled genuinely at Steve despite the fact that his clothes were new and his boots polished.

"Steve." He wasn't quick to trust people. He'd learned that the hard way when he'd realized the world wasn't as nice as he tried to be. It wouldn't coddle him like his mother nor show him kindness when he was down. He had to make his own way in the world in the best way he could. Bucky proved that he didn't have to be alone, that he could trust someone, that there were other people out there who cared. Bucky became his first friend and, for the first time since his mother's death, Steve didn't feel so alone.

Bucky wasn't an orphan and he wasn't poor, but he didn't care that Steve was. "I'll be with you til the end of the line," he told Steve. "Because that's what friends are for. I've got your back."

Steve had gotten used to getting by on his own. After his mother had died, he'd been alone. He had no family or friends to help him get by. He'd just learned to cope on his own. With Bucky he never had to. Bucky was there for him when Steve was at his worst, and Steve protected Bucky with everything he had. As they grew up together, that never changed. They had each other's backs, and Steve realized that family didn't have to be blood.

…

Steve visited his parents' graves every week. He told his mother about Bucky and about how well he was doing in school, particularly his art classes. He told her his dreams of becoming an artist and how Bucky was always encouraging him to enter into school contests.

"I'm not alone," he told her. It was the fifth anniversary of her death, but somehow it still felt like it had happened just yesterday. Bucky had asked if he wanted some company, but it was something Steve had to do alone. Bucky had clasped him on the shoulder and told him he'd be waiting at home. His mother was baking a pie and had invited Steve over for dinner. "But I miss you," he said, his voice cracking. "Every day, I miss you. But I come here every week because I don't want you to feel alone. I never want you to feel alone."

He reached out a hand and brushed the top of the headstone, the rough stone cool in the October air. "Goodbye for now." He stood, brushing the leaves and dirt from the knees of his pants. Leaving was always hard, but he forced himself to keep walking until he came to the gates of the cemetery. To his surprise, Bucky was leaning there waiting for him.

"I didn't want you to be alone," he said simply, falling into step with Steve.

"Thanks, Buck." They walked together toward Bucky's house, and Steve breathed in the Brooklyn air. "Til the end of the line, right?"

"You got it, pal."


	16. Homecoming

**Homecoming**

Steve bolted to his feet as Nina entered the room. She shoved his phone through the bars, and his eyes fell on the message from Aspen. _I'm coming_. His heart leapt and he felt more hopeful than he had since they'd landed themselves back in time.

"We need to get you back to yourself and stall that device," Nina said.

"Strucker knows you're not working for him," Steve told her. "He's suspected for some time."

Nina didn't look as upset or shocked as he'd expected. "Well, hard to keep a secret in this castle. Come on." She unlocked his cell and he tugged on his jacket, tucking the phone into the pocket. He followed Nina out of the cellblock and upstairs to the laboratory. It was empty at this hour – whatever hour it was. The windows were dark but Steve had lost track of time.

"We need to be quick," Nina said, prepping the machine. "Sit down." Steve sat on one of the cots while Nina hurried around the room. Suddenly something sparked and she stiffened in pain before falling to the floor. Steve leapt to his feet to see Strucker standing above the laboratory, a gun in hand. Steve rushed over to Nina and found a pulse. She'd just been electrocuted.

"Handy isn't it?" Strucker said, patting the gun. "I needed someone to test it on."

"Aspen is on her way. We just need a little more time," Steve said, hoping Strucker could be reasoned with.

"I said the past didn't need two Captain America. I didn't say the past would be harmed with a little redhead running around," Strucker said, taking the stairs downward toward where Steve stood, seething.

"Well I'm not going back without her," he said.

"What are you going to do? Fight me? Fight my men?" Strucker asked with a chuckle.

"If that's what it takes," Steve said, standing taller.

"How charming, how simply endearing. I see why Erskine chose you," Strucker said. Steve didn't take it as a compliment. "You're like a little toy dog, all growl and no bite."

"You really want to test that?" Steve asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"Right now I don't really care what you do. My machine is in the final stages. In hours we will both be going back to the future. Your girl will have to settle for what she gets. The machine will only work once. It was doomed to fail, but all I need is for it to work this once."

"Well good luck finishing it. Nina took out some of the parts," Steve said.

"Oh, I know. We found them," Strucker said. "She really isn't as sneaky as she things. SHIELD agents always do have an overconfidence complex."

"If you're so close to completing it, then why don't you turn me back?" Steve asked.

"You think I'm that stupid?" Strucker asked, adjusting his monocle. "No Captain, I think I'll keep you this way for a little longer. Call it insurance. Men." He motioned behind Steve and four guards approached. They didn't have their weapons out, and clearly didn't consider Steve a threat to them. Maybe it was time to prove them wrong. Steve might not have the Super Soldier strength, but he still had his skill and his training. As one of the men reached for his arm, Steve struck forward, connecting with the man's face. He swung a foot out, catching the second in the gut. Strucker simply laughed as the guards recovered.

"You're going to fight? Good. Let's see how well Captain America does without the serum."

Not all forms of fighting required physical strength. Steve found that a well placed kick or punch could off balance his attackers. He was light on his feet and was easily able to dodge the guards. He managed to send one tripping straight into a metal filing cabinet. He slumped to the floor, unconscious. Steve took a blow to the face, but quickly retorted with a succession of karate jabs. The man tripped backwards over some equipment and tangled himself in the wires of one of the machines. Steve sent one of the rolling cots at the other two men, temporarily trapping them. The tangled man pulled out his gun and shot at Steve.

"Do not shoot him!" Strucker shouted from the side of the room. That was when Steve noticed Nina was conscious again. She crawled toward Strucker, eyes on his new weapon. While he shouted at his man, she lunged, knocking Strucker to the ground. She pried the gun from his hands and tossed it to Steve. Three shots, and the other guards were unconcious. Steve joined Nina where she had Strucker pinned to the floor. He didn't look so smug now.

"Never underestimate a little guy," he said, aiming the shock gun at Strucker.

"You think you've won?" Strucker asked. "Think again!"

Nina let go of Strucker as Steve shot the shock gun. Strucker jolted as the shock hit him and then fell unconcious. Nina stood, giving Steve an appraising look. "He talks too much," Steve said.

"That he does. Let's get them all tied up. There's a supply closet just there we can lock them in.

"Are there more guards?" Steve asked.

"I'll take care of them, but first I'm going to get you back to your usual self." They tied their prisoners off with cords and shut them in the storage room, locking it and pushing a chair under the door handle for extra precaution. "It won't hold them forever, but once you get your strength back, we can drag them down to the dungeons."

Steve sat down on the cot again while Nina readied the machines. She hooked him up to the machine and put on a pair of lab glasses. "Close your eyes and hold on," she said. "This is going to hurt a little." She turned the machine on and it rumbled to life. Bright lights pressed in on Steve's eyelids, and he held still until the pain started. He gritted his teeth and waited for it to end. It was a strange sensation much like when he'd first been injected. He could feel his muscles growing, his legs extending. Suddenly his clothes fit instead of falling off of him and he felt strong again. Nina cut the machine, and Steve looked down to find himself back to his Super Soldier body. He disconnected the cords and stood, swaying a little.

"Better?" Nina asked.

"It's nice to be back," he admitted. Although he hadn't done too badly as his old self, he thought. He _had_ taken out four guards. He allowed himself a small smile before turning to Nina.

"Strucker's machine is ready despite my efforts," Nina said. "Guess I'm a little rusty on being an agent."

"You've been cooped up in this castle with Strucker a long time. It's not your fault," Steve told her. "Besides, we need that machine up and running. As soon as Aspen finds us we can go home."

"Let's hope she finds us soon. In the meantime, we need to secure the castle. Strucker has six scientists working for him and six guards other than the ones you took out. We might as well fill the cells downstairs."

Together they dragged the unconscious guards and Strucker onto rolling cots and struggled them downstairs, locking them in the cells. Steve felt some satisfaction at pushing Strucker into his old cell. Everyone was searched for weapons or anything that might help them escape the cells. Nina and Steve armed themselves with the weapons they found and went in search of the other guards. The castle wasn't as extensive as Steve had first thought and finding the guards didn't take long. The sounds of the first two guards they found struggling had the others running to see what the ruckus was. In the end, Nina walked all six guards down to the cells, guns in both hands. Strucker was awake by then. He didn't look upset which unsettled Steve. Instead he clapped his hands slowly together.

"Well, well, Captain. It seems I underestimated you. But you still need me to get home or had you forgotten?"

"Your machine is ready. I feel better with you down here until it's time to go home," Steve told him.

Strucker simply smiled. "What makes you think I haven't instructed my scientists to remove vital parts if anything should happen to me?" he asked.

"You're lying," Steve said but he wasn't sure. Strucker just smiled.

"You really think I didn't consider the possibility of you getting your strength back?" he asked. "I took precautions."

"We need to get to that machine," Nina said, tugging on Steve's arm. He followed her out of the dungeons as Strucker laughed behind them.

They ran the length of the castle, Nina leading them to Strucker's workroom. "Hands in the air!" she shouted at the scientists when they entered. Sure enough all six scientists were in the room, surrounding Strucker's device. Steve recognized it as the same one that had brought Aspen and him back in time.

"Put it back together!" Nina snapped.

"We don't know how," one of the scientists said. "He only told us how to take it apart not how to put it back together."

"Strucker wants us to need him," Steve said.

"Well isn't that great. Come on, all of you," Nina said, waving her gun toward the door. "I'll get them locked up, see if you can figure out how to put that thing back together."

Steve frowned, but didn't bother to argue as he found the schematics for the machine. He recognized his own drawing but, try as he may, he had no idea what any of it meant. If Tony Stark were here he could have the machine fixed and modified in a second, but Steve was beginning to realize that Strucker was his only hope – just as Strucker had planned. He sighed heavily. For now Strucker was better off in the dungeons. When Aspen was here then Steve would be ready to let Strucker out. He was relying heavily on Strucker not wanting two Captain Americas in the past.

"Everyone is locked up. I thought I should keep watch just in case," Nina said. "I wouldn't put it past one of them to find a way to escape. Take this." She handed Steve a radio. "We can keep in contact. You go look out for your girlfriend."

Steve took the radio. "Thank you," he told her. "I couldn't have done this without you."

"Don't thank me yet. We're still stuck here. I take it you have no idea how to fix the machine."

"It's a bit beyond my skills," Steve said.

"Mine too. What I wouldn't give to put a bullet between his eyes. Ah, well, I guess I'll have the honor of taking him into SHIELD custody when we get back."

"I wouldn't dream of stealing that moment away from you," Steve said with a smile.

…

It was a long flight back to Germany. If only Aspen had gotten the message sooner but then she wouldn't have met pre-serum Steve on Brooklyn Bridge. Everything happened for a reason, right? When the plane finally came in view of the castle, Howard turned to look back at Aspen. "You sure about this? I can find a place to land."

"I don't know what to expect. I'd be better if I went in quietly."

"You don't have to do this alone," Peggy said as she helped Aspen into her parachute.

"I know." She smiled at the brunette agent. "This is something I have to do alone. It's been the greatest honor meeting you, Peggy. All this was worth it just to meet you."

Peggy smiled back at her and pulled her into a hug. "I won't forget you," she said.

Aspen didn't know if that was good or bad for the future, but she decided she didn't care. "Good luck – with everything. No spoilers, but let's just say you're going to go far in life even if it seems bleak at times. Don't let anyone step on you."

"Good luck to you too. You're going to find him and make it home."

"I think so too."

"Good luck, kid!" Howard called to her as Peggy opened the side door of the plane.

"Thanks, Howard!" Aspen said, throwing him a smile. She gave Peggy one more smile before jumping. The wind caught her up in its grasp as the plane turned around. She could see Peggy for a moment before the wind carried her away.

Dawn was breaking as the parachute took her gently to the ground where she unclasped it and headed toward the castle. She was half a mile from the front doors, and she approached without meeting any form of defense. She crouched behind some bushes to scope out the castle. The castle doors opened and she froze. A familiar form walked into the dawn, and Aspen's heart soared. Was it a trick? She decided she didn't care. Instead she jumped from the bushes and ran toward the man. He turned, blue eyes widening.

"Aspen!" he called out, meeting her halfway and grabbing her up in his arms. Her feet left the ground as she wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek against his.

"I thought I'd never find you, but then I got your message," Aspen said when he set her down. His arms remained wrapped around her.

"I knew you'd find me. I wasn't going to leave without you." He leaned down and kissed her, and she melted into him. God, she'd missed him. "I missed you," he said, echoing her thoughts. "So much."

Aspen kissed him in response. They stood outside until the chill crawled into Aspen's skin and she started shivering. "Let's get inside," Steve suggested taking her hand.

"Are you by yourself here? I thought you said it was Strucker's castle."

"It is. Nina and I took it by force."

"Nina?" Aspen asked curiously.

"She's a SHIELD agent. She got accidentally sucked back in time with Strucker when she was investigating him a few years back. She's been helping me." He quickly filled Aspen in on what had happened to him since they'd arrived back in 1940. "Strucker said something about you being in Schmidt's castle. With Peggy. Is that true?" he asked when he'd finished.

"Yeah, it is." Aspen told her side of the story watching the mixture of emotions on Steve's face.

"How is she?" he asked.

"Fierce and fearless. I love her," Aspen told him. "It was like a dream come true working with her to save Doctor Erskine. I felt like I was a part of history."

"You are."

"Do you think I changed anything in the future?" she asked. "I was so afraid I'd mess something up."

"I'm sure we've both somehow changed _something_ in the future, but I think everything is going to turn out all right. Peggy will keep it to herself."

"She's amazing. It made me so sad to think you didn't get a life with her," Aspen said.

"It is sad, but then I wouldn't have met you." Steve turned to look at her. "I am _so_ glad to have met you. It was so strange being back in the 40s – it still is – but I realized that it didn't feel like home anymore. Home is back in the future with you. It's the second chance I was given."

Aspen pulled him into a hug, resting her head against his chest. "That means everything to hear that," she said. "There's something else…when I was in New York, I met you."

"You met me? Pre-serum me?" Steve asked.

"You were perfect the way you were, you know," she told him. "I would love you either way."

"You almost got the old Steve," he said with a nervous laugh. "Strucker thought I wasn't much of a threat in that form."

"He was wrong. The determination you had… It was like the world could throw everything at you, and you would meet it head on. It was my first instinct to just pull him – _you_ – into my arms and protect you, but then I realized you never needed protecting. Okay, maybe a little help from Bucky when the bullies used you as a punching bag, but you were always strong. I could see it in your eyes even then – it was like this life force that couldn't be put out no matter how many people pushed you down."

Steve's cheeks were faintly pink as she spoke. "Wow, that's probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said about little me."

Aspen pushed him playfully. "You were very sweet to me. I was so shocked."

"I can imagine. Seeing him – _me _ – when I was in New York was odd enough."

"The last three days have been the strangest of my life," Aspen agreed. "Can we go home?"

"Yeah…there's just one problem. Strucker may have had his scientists disable the machine when Nina and I captured him and his guards. But he wants to get back to his time as much as we do. He'll fix it, but we need to make sure his other machine doesn't make it through."

"Where is it?"

"I don't know. I didn't see it, and I don't know what it looks like. I'll have Nina try to find it when she's finished guarding Strucker downstairs."

"I definitely wouldn't mind sharing a few words with him," Aspen said. "Like 'what' and 'were' and 'you thinking?'"

Steve smiled. "He'll get what's coming to him," he told her. "He can spend time in SHIELD lockup thinking about his ill-conceived ideas of time travel."

…

"Fix it," Steve told Strucker, pushing him none-too-gently into the room with the time machine. "Now." He'd sent Nina to find the other device after they'd failed to find it in Strucker's workroom.

"I see your girl found her way back to you after all," Strucker said, giving Aspen a smile.

"Lucky for you," Aspen said. "You would have been stuck here a lot longer if I hadn't shown up when I did."

"Well now we can all go home," he said, grabbing a screwdriver and beginning his work on the machine. Steve watched him carefully, but he wouldn't have known if Strucker was building a time bomb. The machine was complicated and beyond anything Steve had ever seen. Strucker wanted to get back too though and he was relying on that.

"I can't find it," Nina said when she entered the room a moment later. Strucker smiled at this though he hadn't been clued in on what she was looking for.

"Where's the other device, Strucker?" Steve asked.

Strucker shrugged. "I don't know what you mean."

Steve grabbed him by the shirt and thrust him against a worktable. Tools clattered as Strucker hit the table. "I'll ask you again. Where is the device?"

Strucker just smiled, and Steve knew he wasn't afraid. "Intimidate me all you like, Captain. You won't find it."

"Search him," Nina said. Steve did as she requested but found nothing.

"Finish the machine," Steve told him, feeling frustrated. He just wanted to get home. Dealing with Strucker had turned into a complicated and tiring process. He wanted nothing more than to go home with Aspen and sleep for three days. _After_ Strucker was safely behind bars.

"There, it's finished," Strucker said, setting down his tools.

"You're sure?" Steve asked him.

"I'm sure. It will get us back to the future three days after you came back here."

"No tricks?" Aspen asked.

"Whatever tricks I have up my sleeve are for after we're safely back in our time," he said.

"Fine. What do we do?" Steve asked.

Strucker pressed a button on the machine and it hummed to life. The lights above them flickered as if the machine was sucking the power from the castle. "Place your hands on the handles on the side," Strucker instructed them, holding onto one of the handles. Steve, Aspen, and Nina did as he asked. "Whatever you do, don't let go."

They held tight as Strucker pressed more buttons. The machine started to rattle, and Steve was afraid it might fall apart. It held together though as a light grew in the middle. He felt a stab of fear and reached out his free hand to grasp Aspen's.

"Hold on with both hands!" Strucker shouted as the machine rumbled loudly. Aspen squeezed his hand before letting go to grip both hands to the bar. The light was growing until it was too bright to look at. Steve shut his eyes.

Suddenly Nina called out to them through he racket. "I've found the device! He's built it into the machine!"

A lurch cut off her words. Then came a scream. Steve tried to open his eyes. He saw someone dangling from the other side of the machine. Nina. Something had gone wrong. As the machine lurched again, he saw her falling. Aspen reached out a hand to her with a shout, but Nina's fingers slipped through hers.

"Nina!" Steve shouted after her, but the agent was beyond his reach and all he could see was light. He was forced to shut his eyes again.

"One thing I forgot to mention!" Strucker shouted above the roar of the machine. "I'm afraid once you return, you'll have no memory of the last three days."

"What?!" Steve turned to Strucker but the machine was moving quickly now, and Steve shut his eyes against the wave of sickness that hit him. Everything was pure light, and he could hardly grip the bars. He reached out anyway to make sure Aspen was still there. She was, gripping the machine as if her life depended on it. Before Steve could even wonder if Nina had made it he began to forget Nina she was. The rumbling softened and the machine slowed and suddenly everything was quiet and he had no idea where he was.


	17. Missing Memories

**Missing Memories**

**July 25, 2012**

Aspen opened her eyes to find herself lying on a cement floor. She felt dazed and her memories were garbled. A light behind her was fading until she had to blink in the semi-darkness. There was someone lying on the floor next to her and she recognized the blonde hair and muscular shoulders. She crawled over to him, her legs feeling like silly string.

"Steve?" Her voice was harsh in the quiet room. She touched his shoulder and he stirred.

"Aspen?"

"What happened?" she asked. The last thing she could remember was driving through Germany. They had been on a mission. Strucker. They'd been after Strucker. His voice had come in over the radio in their car, and he'd led them to this bunker.

"The machine. It must have exploded or something," Steve said, sitting up. His shield was sitting a few feet away and he pulled it over.

"I don't remember anything after it turned on."

"It must have knocked us unconscious somehow. Are you all right?" he asked, looking her over.

"Yeah, I think so. Let's get out of here."

Steve helped her to her feet, and they left the bunker, opening the door to the daylight. Their truck sat parked where they had left it, and they leaned against it to get their bearings. Aspen pulled out her phone to check the time. "That can't be right." She frowned.

"What?"

"The date says that it's July 25th, but it's the 21st." She showed Steve who pulled out his own phone to check.

"Mine says the 25th too," he said, furrowing his brow in confusion.

"Must be some weird error," Aspen said, but she felt unsettled. "Do you feel like we're missing something?" she asked suddenly.

"Yeah. Like there are pieces of memory missing, but I can't quite figure out where they go or what they are."

"Let's get out of here. Clearly it's a dead end." Aspen checked the map on her phone. "There's a town literally right over the bend," she said, pointing toward the north.

"I could use some food and maybe a nap," Steve said, getting into the truck. Aspen took one last look at the bunker before getting in as well. Steve drove them down the road and into the small town that lay in a shallow valley, neither speaking. They parked near a diner and got out. Aspen's legs still felt unsteady under her and she held onto the door. Before they could take one step, a rumbling started up toward the south. Aspen looked up, trying to find the source for the rumbling.

"What was that?" she asked.

Steve frowned. "It came toward the bunker."

"Do you think we upset something in there?" Aspen asked. "What if we set that machine off? We have no idea what it does."

A moment later the ground shuddered again and Aspen saw a mushroom cloud appear over where the bunker lay.

"I think it might be self-destructing," Steve said.

"That's not good." A normal machine might have simply destroyed the bunker and perhaps a few yards of land around it, but there wasn't anything normal about the wave of rocks and debris that came flying toward the city. It was as if the hillside itself was collapsing. The people around them started screaming as the first wave hit the town. Roads buckled, and cars tipped. Aspen and Steve stared, disbelieving, at the destruction. "Did we do that?" Aspen asked weakly.

"I don't know."

"We need to do something," Aspen said. "Evacuate people or something."

"Let's start getting them out," Steve agreed, grabbing his shield from the truck as the second wave hit. This time one of the buildings closest to the hills cracked and buckled, the foundations giving out.

"How is it causing this much destruction?" Aspen asked.

"Maybe that's what it's supposed to do," Steve suggested.

As they ran toward the destruction, people came running past them. Steve and Aspen tried to hurry them along. "We need to see if there are any stragglers," Aspen said. "I think they get the idea that they need to run."

People were already getting into cars to make a faster escape as rubble came flying down toward the town. Aspen tripped and nearly fell as the ground shook, but Steve grabbed her arm and pulled her back up. They heard screams coming from a café on the corner, and they saw that the doorway had collapsed leaving the people trapped. They ran toward it, and Steve smashed one of the windows with his shield so that the people could escape. Aspen helped direct them.

"It's getting worse," she said as another rumble set them off balance. "I don't think it's fully exploded yet."

"There are still people in the buildings," Steve said. "I'm not sure if we have time to get them all out." He looked around for something, anything, to help them, but they had no control over the explosions. Already a traffic jam was keeping people from escaping the town. In the chaos the people were panicking, and Aspen couldn't really blame them.

Suddenly the sky exploded into a fiery mass. Aspen and Steve watched helplessly as the smoke clouded out the blue sky. Then a wave started toward the town, and Aspen could see that when it hit, a lot of people were going to die.

_I believe in you_. The words suddenly echoed in her head, and her hand went unconsciously to the cuff around her wrist. "I might be able to stop it," she said before she knew what she was saying. Steve looked down at her, eyes desperate. Aspen took off the cuff, unprepared for the power that surged in her mind. It registered chaos, and she felt herself begin to lose control before she forced herself to focus. _Concentrate_. She concentrated her powers on the wave of rubble coming every closer to the town. She didn't know her limitations, didn't know what she could do, but if there was ever a time for her powers to help her, it was now. She could feel energy thrumming around her and she pulled on it directing it toward the oncoming wave. If she could just stop it from coming... Fear and determination gave her strength, and she visualized an invisible wall keeping the rubble at bay. It was at the edge of the town now. It was now or never. Aspen let go of her fear and gave her powers everything she had. She could feel the energy around her, feel the wall mounting upward toward the sky. The screams behind her were distant. She could feel Steve's eyes on her, trusting her with his life as they stood on the brink of death. It never occurred to Aspen that she couldn't do this because she _had_ to do this. Their lives depended on it. If she couldn't save these people with the Superhero Serum then it had no right to be called that.

The wave hit, and Aspen felt its force. Instead of hitting her and the town, however, it stopped. It crashed into the invisible wall, shaking and attacking with everything it had, but then it fell to the ground just outside the town. The rumbling died down, and Aspen knew it was over. A drop of blood dripped from her nose and she let go. She fell to her knees, every bit of energy in her gone. Steve was at her side, pulling her into his arms, but she was too tired to tell him she was all right. She was too tired to keep her eyes open. All she wanted was to sleep.

…

Steve watched as Aspen stood up to the oncoming storm of rubble not knowing what she was doing but trusting her all the same. He noticed the cuff missing from her wrist. She was attempting to use her powers. She'd never used them successfully before but the determination on her face kept him still. If anyone could save them, it was Aspen. He didn't know what she could do and nor did she, but as the wave or destruction hit, it stopped short as if colliding with an invisible wall. It hovered there for a moment and then fell to the ground beyond the town. Aspen fell to her knees, blood dripping from her nose. Steve grabbed her before she fell to the ground and pulled her into his arms. Aspen's eyes fluttered shut, but he could feel her heart pounding strongly against his chest as he held her close. He walked through the town, through the crowds of people who all stared at Aspen with a mixture of fear, disbelief, and awe. Steve placed Aspen in the truck and got in. He sat for a long minute.

Suddenly a voice crackled on the radio, making him jump. He recognized the voice. "_Well, well, Captain. It seems you and your girl survived. I'm impressed. I don't suppose you remember our meeting?"_

"What meeting?"

"_Ah well, it's better this way. We will not meet for awhile, but be assured that when we do meet again, I'll be more than ready to deal with you and your friends._"

"Strucker! What happened? What was that machine?" Steve asked, shouting at the car's radio. The voice was gone though and he was left without answers. He growled in frustration. Starting up the truck, he pulled out of the town, weaving through the standstill of traffic. He kept driving until they reached the next town where he booked a hotel room and carried Aspen in and set her on the bed. He didn't have the energy to change his clothes so he lay down next to her. He was asleep within seconds.

…

When Aspen awoke she was lying on a bed in a room she didn't recognize. The door to the bathroom was open, and she saw steam issuing from within and heard the sound of the shower shutting off. A moment later Steve entered the room with a towel wrapped around his waist.

"You're awake," he said when he saw her sitting up.

"Where are we?" Aspen asked. She was covered in dust and wasn't wearing her cuff. She looked around for it, finding it in the pocket of her jacket. She hesitated before putting it back on. "I used my powers."

"You remember?"

"What I did was impossible though," Aspen said, looking down at her hands. "How could I do that?"

"I don't know." Steve was looking at her cautiously. "It took a toll on you, but you stopped that explosion from destroying the town. You manipulated energy or something – created a force field to stop it."

"I don't know how to do that though," Aspen said quietly.

"We don't know much of anything about your abilities," Steve said. "Who knows what you can do. I do know that you were a hero though. You saved a lot of lives."

"I want to wash all this dust off of me," Aspen said, standing. She passed Steve and shut herself in the bathroom, striping off her dusty clothes and turning on the water. She scrubbed the dust and smoke away from her skin and hair until all she could smell was soap and shampoo. She shut the water off and wrapped herself in a towel. Steve was dressed when she entered the other room.

She grabbed fresh clothes and quickly changed. Before they left the room, she clasped the cuff back on her wrist. She didn't know what exactly she'd done but the amount of power inside of her frightened her. She wasn't sure she wanted that kind of power.

They grabbed breakfast to go and drove straight to the airport. "I talked to Fury while you were in the shower," Steve said. "He hadn't heard from us in three days. Aspen, we were in that bunker for three days," he said.

"How is that possible?" she asked.

"I don't know. Strucker sent me another message though." He relayed what he'd heard over the car radio when she'd been unconscious. "There's something we're missing, but I don't know how to find out what. Strucker made it clear he didn't want us to know."

"I don't like the idea of having missing memories," Aspen said.

"Me neither."

"Right now I just want to be home," Aspen said. "I know an agent should see a mission through to the end, but feel like Strucker won this round."

"I think so too." She could tell it pained him to admit it.

"It's okay to lose every once in awhile. We could have died back there, but we didn't." Steve smiled at Aspen. "I'd say that's a win," she finished.

He took her hand and held it the rest of the way to the airport.

…

"So you mean to tell me that for the last three days you have no idea what happened?" Fury asked as Steve and Aspen stood before him in his office the following day.

"That sounds about right," Aspen said.

"But you woke up in the bunker you'd entered three days before. The same bunker that then exploded nearly taking out an entire town."

"Yes, sir," Steve said. He and Aspen hadn't talked about what they'd gone through much, but they were both unsettled over the missing memories. Strucker seemed to be aware of what happened, but he wasn't sharing, so Steve and Aspen were left with nothing. Steve had wracked his brain so many times over the last day, but he couldn't remember anything after arriving at the bunker. The machine had turned on and then nothing. He couldn't shake the feeling that the time in between had been significant somehow.

"I have a team looking into the explosion. There's a lot of talk in that town about what you did." He angled his eye at Aspen who flushed, her hand going to the cuff.

"I don't know what I did or how I did it," she told him.

"You saved a lot of lives."

Aspen nodded. "It cost her though," Steve put in. "She blacked out and her nose was bleeding. It takes a toll on her. I know she can use her abilities for good, but right now she doesn't know how to control them or their limitations."

"Remember I told you there was a psychologist who could look into your abilities?" Fury asked.

"Yes."

"Well I want you to go and see her," Fury said. "She works in the psychology department and is the best in her field. If anyone can help you, it's her. Look her up. Her name is Alison Rinehart."

Aspen nodded again. She didn't seem capable of speech anymore. She felt exhausted, and all she wanted to do was climb into bed and sleep. "I'll look into it," she said.

"All right. We'll let you know if we find anything new," Fury said. "Go get some rest."

"Do you really think I can be trained to use my abilities?" Aspen asked Steve after they'd left the office.

"I think you can do anything if you put your mind to it," he told her. "It's just like training."

"Except I understand my limitations when I'm training. I know how fast I can run and how long I can fight. This is completely different."

"If anyone can handle it, it's you," Steve told her. "You're strong and you're not afraid to back down from a challenge. I'm sure mastering your abilities will be a challenge, but I believe in you."

Aspen's face went blank for a moment as if she was remembering something, then she shook her head. "Let's go home," she said. "I want to nap until tomorrow."

When they got back to their apartment, Aspen immediately crashed on the couch, curling up into a tiny ball. Steve put the kettle on and leaned against the kitchen counter. Aspen was asleep when he came back into the living room, but she woke up when he sat down next to her. She rolled over and put her head in his lap, looking up at him with tired eyes. "Do you think I should go see that psychologist?" she asked.

"It might help," Steve said. "But that should be your decision. You saw part of what you could do, but you also saw that it could cost you."

"It was frightening. Not so much using my powers, but seeing just _what _they could do. If I don't learn to control them then imagine the damage I could do."

Steve furrowed his brow. "You'd never use your powers for destruction though."

"Not on purpose, but if I lose control, there's no telling what I could do." She looked away, quiet for a long moment. "I'll go see her soon," she said. "It couldn't hurt."

"I think that's a good idea." Steve took her hand and they spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. The apartment felt like home now after their mission in Germany. He couldn't shake the intense need he felt to be home even though they hadn't been gone long.

"Something happened didn't it?" Aspen asked as if reading his thoughts.

"We're okay though. That's what matters the most," Steve assured her though he wasn't sure that was true. He just wished he could remember why he felt so unsettled.


	18. Old Friends and New

**Old Friends and New**

**August 3, 2012**

"Hello?" Aspen was standing in the doorway of Alison Rinehart's office in the SHIELD psychology department. She'd finally followed through on Fury's recommendation. She hadn't removed her cuff since Germany, and she was hoping she could keep it on now.

"You must be Aspen," a voice said. A woman entered the room from a door off to the right. She was tall and professionally dressed, bright blue eyes sharp and interested as she moved to shake Aspen's hand.

"That's me." The doctor's hand was cold and clammy, and Aspen pulled hers back swiftly. "Fury said you might be able to help me," she said, getting straight to the point.

"I'm certainly eager to try," Doctor Rinehart said with a warm smile. She motioned for Aspen to sit in the chair before her desk. Her eagle eyes watched Aspen's every movement doing nothing to make her feel comfortable.

"Tell me a little about yourself," the psychologist asked. She pulled out a pad of paper and pen as if to take notes. Aspen swallowed hard.

"Well, I've been working for SHIELD for a little over a year." There was an awkward pause. Aspen hated this question because she had absolutely no idea what the doctor was looking for. Then it occurred to her – she didn't want to hear about Aspen's life, she wanted to hear about her _power_. "I was injected in May with a serum my parents developed. The Superhero Serum they called it. Silly name really." She touched the cuff self-consciously.

"The people in that little German town you saved don't think it's silly," Rinehart said without blinking. "They think you're a hero."

"Look, Doctor Rinehart-"

"Alison, please."

"I'm not a hero. I'm just a girl who was injected with some serum without my permission. I don't want it in me. I just want to be normal."

"If you wanted to be normal, you wouldn't be here."

Aspen blinked. The doctor cocked her head to the side. "I'm here because I want to control it," she said slowly.

"You're here because you want to _use_ it," Doctor Rinehart pressed, leaning forward with a hungry sort of look that made Aspen want to lean back.

"I don't know," she said flatly. "What happened in Germany…it was just a fluke. An adrenaline response. I would have died if I hadn't done something."

"Your instincts took over," Rinehart said.

"Yeah, something like that."

"That's a good start. Trust your instincts. They'll get you out of tight places and allow you to do things you never knew you could do," Rinehart said. She scribbled a few notes on her pad and then turned back to Aspen.

"Did your parents describe the properties of the serum to you?"

"I just know that they supposedly allow me full access to my brain," Aspen said. "But I don't know enough about what all my brain can do to understand what that means."

"What have you been able to do since you've been injected?" Rinehart asked, pen poised to write.

"I've been able to sense heat signatures. I can control energy around me. I don't know what else." She couldn't stop her dad from dying. It seemed like that would have been the best use of her abilities. She didn't mention this to Rinehart. She probably already knew anyway. As long as she didn't ask Aspen to talk about her feelings or how his death had affected her.

"Then it sounds like we need to _learn_ just what you can do first," the doctor said, setting down her pen. "I'd like to try something." Aspen didn't like the sound of that.

"Like what?" she asked cautiously.

Doctor Rinehart stood, and Aspen followed suit. "First of all you'll have to take off that cuff if we want to see what you can do."

Aspen didn't think it was any use arguing. Doctor Rinehart was right. They couldn't do anything with the muting device still firmly clasped around her wrist. "All right." She clicked it off and stowed it in her pocket. The thrum of power caught her off guard. She could hear Doctor Rinehart's heartbeat and feel the perfect sixty-six degree temperature in the room. She forced herself to focus on Rinehart, but her nerves kept her distracted.

"Let's see what you can do," the doctor said. "Can you tell me how many workers are on this floor by their heat signatures?"

Aspen shut her eyes and focused on that aspect of her power. She reached out her senses and it was as if she could see their bodies, red forms filled with warmth. "Seventeen?" she asked tentatively.

"Eighteen, but that's very impressive. Now, I wonder if you have the ability to move objects with your mind. If you can manipulate energy, then I think you could certainly move things with your mind." It sounded impossible, but Aspen had seen a lot of impossible within her lifetime. "Try moving the book on my desk."

Aspen focused on the book, staring it down and feeling completely foolish. She stared so hard at the book that her eyes began to cross, and she could feel a tension headache forming between her eyes. The book didn't budge. Finally she sagged, giving up. "I can't do it," she said, turning back to the doctor.

Doctor Rinehart was frowning, but rearranged her face when Aspen turned to her. "Never mind. What about manipulating energy? We know you can do that."

"I don't know how though. That was in a moment of fear. I'm not sure if I could do it again."

"Try."

Aspen wanted to just say no and leave the room, but she forced herself to stay. She tried to put herself back into the moment when she'd unleashed her powers. She pictured the wave of rubble coming straight at her. She felt the energy around her and tried to gather it. The idea of what she was doing was ridiculous, but she let herself believe for a moment that she could do it. She felt a tingling in her fingertips and looked down to see a wavering sort of energy surrounding them. It startled her and for a second she was terrified of what she could do. As her concentration broke, the energy shot forward and hit the wall. The force sent pictures careening off the wall and when the smoke had cleared, Aspen saw that there were singe marks left behind. She stared for a moment.

"This was a horrible idea," she said finally. She clasped the cuff back around her wrist. "I'm sorry." She ran from the office.

"Aspen, wait!" Doctor Rinehart called after her, but Aspen was already hurdling out the doors of the psychology department. She didn't stop until she was back home. She shut the door and leaned against it, breathing hard. Steve looked up from where he was reading, eyes widening when he saw how upset she was.

"Aspen, what happened?" he asked, dropping the book onto the couch and coming forward.

Aspen shook her head. "I just lost control of my powers," she said.

Steve slipped his arm around her and gently walked her to the couch. She sat next to him, his arm still firmly around her. "Do you want to talk about it?" he asked softly.

"I went to see Doctor Rinehart, to see if she could help. She had me take off the cuff and test my powers." Steve frowned but didn't interrupt. "At first it was okay. I could read heat signatures and tell her how many people were in the department. She had me try to move a book with my mind and it didn't budge, but then she asked me to manipulate energy like I did before. I managed to do it, but then I lost control and it burned a hole in her wall. I ran."

"She shouldn't have tested you like that," Steve said.

"But she was right. How will I ever learn what I can do if I don't take off the cuff and test my abilities? But I've decided I don't want to test them which is why I'm never taking this off. It just felt wrong using them when I had no idea what kind of destruction I could cause. I just wish I could be normal." Her voice broke, and she blinked back tears.

"There is nothing wrong with you," Steve said. "Nothing at all." She turned and buried her head in his shoulder. "What if we went away for awhile?" Steve asked. "Not on a mission, but on a trip?"

"What were you thinking?" Aspen pulled her head away from his shoulder to speak.

"I was thinking about visiting Peggy." He said the words quickly as if he'd been thinking about it for a time but wasn't sure when to ask.

"Yes, I'd love that." Aspen hadn't seen Peggy since- She stopped herself. She'd never met Peggy in person. Then why did she get the feeling that she knew her already? It was probably just all that Steve had told her about Peggy.

"I called her while you were at headquarters and she suggested it. She's really eager to meet you."

"She is?" Aspen beamed feeling a thousand times better.

"Yeah. I talked to Fury about the possibility of you and me taking some time off, and he said it might be a good idea."

"When can we go?" Aspen asked.

"How about next week? I can book us a flight to London. She said we're welcome to stay with her. She's got a guest room."

"That sounds wonderful. I know we weren't gone long on that mission, but if feels like we were."

"I feel the same way." Aspen nestled against him. "I won't let Strucker mess around with our heads again," Steve told her.

"Will you promise me something else?" Aspen asked.

"Anything."

"Promise that if this cuff comes off again and I lose control, you'll stop me." She looked up at him.

"That's not going to happen," he said forcefully. "You're not going to lose control."

"But it could happen. Please promise me."

"I promise to keep you from losing control," he said. "I promise to protect you."

"Then I guess I have nothing to worry about," she said with a smile.

…

Peggy's house was on the outskirts of London away from the city. She had a wonderful garden that nearly hid her cottage. Steve could tell Aspen felt at home right away. The tension that had rested on her shoulders since their mission had vanished, and a smile glowed on her face as they entered the gated yard. The front door opened, and Peggy Carter stepped onto her porch. Time had folded wrinkles into her face and turned her hair grey, but the glow in her brown eyes was just as it had been before and the self-assurance in her posture hadn't changed. She was still absolutely beautiful. Steve felt his heart crumble and reform, a mixture of emotions racing through his mind. He wanted to sob and smile all at once.

"Steve," Peggy said, her voice the most welcome thing he'd heard in ages. "And this must be Aspen." Peggy turned to Aspen who was looking at the older woman in awe.

"It's so wonderful to meet you," Aspen said. "Thank you so much for inviting us to stay at your house." She was still cautious as if she didn't feel she had a right to be with Steve now that Peggy was here, but the older woman pulled Aspen into a hug the second Aspen reached her.

"It's wonderful to finally meet you too," she said, giving Steve a smile over Aspen's shoulder. "You're just as beautiful as Steve's described," she said, holding Aspen at arm's length to look at her. Aspen beamed and then stepped aside so that Steve and Peggy could greet each other properly.

Peggy opened her arms, and Steve walked into them, wrapping his gently around her. His throat congested as his emotions overcame him. He shut his eyes and held onto the woman he'd once loved.

"It's so good to see you, Steve," Peggy said.

Steve mastered his emotions and pulled away to beam down at her. Peggy's brown eyes were filled with ears, but her smile showed just how happy she was. "You too." When he'd first woken up he'd thought she was gone forever. Now here she was standing in front of him. Maybe they hadn't had the chance to have a life together, but now they had a chance to be friends in this new world he'd woken up in.

"Please come in," she said, turning and taking Aspen's hand. Aspen was grinning and sent Steve a happy look. His heart warmed to see her and Peggy getting along so well. They entered her house to find it just as lovely on the inside as the outside. "I've just put the kettle on if you'd like tea. Please make yourselves at home." She left them in the living room to look at the pictures on the walls and on the mantle. Steve saw one of him – pre-serum him – that Peggy must have kept since the war. It was the picture taken of him with his dog tags right after he'd been enlisted. Aspen smiled when she saw it.

There was a picture of Peggy's two children and late husband on the mantle, and Steve saw Peggy in her daughter's eyes and her son's thick, dark hair. "They're beautiful," he said when Peggy returned holding a tray of tea. Steve hurried to take it from her, setting it on the coffee table.

"Thank you," she said, smiling at the picture. "They're good children. Of course they're all grown now. Michael is a lawyer. He works in New York. Penny works for an group that promotes women's rights." She told them a few stories of her children and Steve politely asked how she'd met her husband.

"He was one of the men you rescued," Peggy told him, "during the war. He was a great admirer of yours. We didn't meet until after the war. There was a connection. He was incredibly intelligent and thoughtful. He was the first person who made me think maybe I could still have a happy ending."

"I'm happy for you," Steve told her. "I didn't want you to be alone."

Peggy smiled, looking across to where Aspen was sitting. "You two are so lucky to have met. I can tell how happy you are."

"I sometimes wonder how I got to be so lucky," Aspen spoke up. "My life has been a bit of a chaotic mess up, but somehow I still managed to find my way to Steve. He keeps me sane. Like your late husband, he makes me feel that it's possible to have a happy ending."

They shared memories long into the afternoon and there was laughter and smiling. To Steve it felt like healing. Like closure. But it wasn't any sort of ending; it was a new beginning. He was learning to love Peggy in a different way. She was his friend now, and he was incredibly blessed to have that opportunity. Having the two most important women in his life in the same room made him realize just how lucky he was.

That night when he came out of the bathroom after brushing his teeth he found Aspen sitting cross-legged on the bed holding a photo album. "It was on the bookshelf," she said as he sat down next to her. A moment later she gasped.

"What?" Steve looked over her shoulder at the page.

"Her daughter. Look at her daughter," Aspen said.

Steve found the picture of the girl with Peggy's eyes. She was throwing leaves into the sky looking like the happiest kid in the world. "She looks just like Peggy."

"Look at the name." Aspen's voice was faint.

Steve glanced down at the label below the picture. _Aspen 'Penny', age 7. _

"Her name is Aspen."

"It's a coincidence," Steve said. An odd one.

"I'm not sure…" Aspen bit her lip, running fingers over the name. "When I met Peggy, I felt this familiarity rush over me like it wasn't the first time we'd met."

"Well I've told you all about her."

"It wasn't that," Aspen said, shaking her head. "I felt like we really had met before. Just not in this lifetime… That sounds ridiculous, but I can't shake it."

Steve was quiet, thinking. "Maybe…maybe something happened while we were in Germany. We can't remember those three days…"

"You think I met Peggy?" Aspen asked, looking up at him. "How would that be possible?"

"I don't know. We have no idea what Strucker's machine did. Maybe it gave us false memories or something."

"Only I can't remember anything."

"Me neither." He leaned back against the pillows. "We could ask."

"I'm afraid of upsetting something," Aspen said.

"Upsetting what?" Steve asked her as she shut the photo album.

"I don't know." Aspen set the book aside. "I'm being silly. I'm sure it's just a coincidence. It's not like I'm the only Aspen out there in the world."

"I'm sure you're right."

But as Steve tried to fall asleep that night, he couldn't shake the feeling that they were both missing something. He opened the album again, using the moonlight flooding through the window to see by. Peggy's daughter was usually called Penny whenever the pictures were labeled. At the very beginning of the album there were pictures of her children right after they'd been born. _Michael Steven _and _Aspen Amanda_. He paused at her son's middle name. His heart swelled when he realized she'd named her son after him. But had she named her daughter after Aspen and how?

…

Their time in London went far too quickly, and Aspen wished they could stay forever. Her initial surprise over Peggy's daughter sharing her name had faded. It had to be a coincidence. There was no way she'd already met Peggy.

The last day of their trip came around, and Aspen took a walk in the garden while Steve and Peggy had a conversation inside. She found a quiet bench to sit on and rested her head against the side of the house, letting the sun soak her.

"May I?" She opened her eyes to see Peggy standing there.

"Of course." Aspen scooted over so that Peggy could sit.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

"I love it here," Aspen agreed. "It's like I can forget there's anything to worry about."

"It will be a shame when I sell it, but I'm afraid I'm getting too old to live by myself."

"Don't say that," Aspen protested. "You're not too old."

Peggy smiled at her. "I'm thinking about moving closer," she told Aspen. "I've been looking into homes and there's one outside of DC that looks quite nice."

"I'd love to be able to visit you more," Aspen said. She hesitated, a question dangling on the tip of her tongue. "Why is your daughter named Aspen?" she blurted.

Peggy didn't look surprised. "You saw that."

"I saw your photo album."

"It's a lovely name," Peggy said.

"Thank you. I just…I just have this crazy feeling that there's something more to it," she said knowing somehow that it wouldn't sound crazy to Peggy.

"Steve mentioned that you were on a mission recently where you came back with missing memories. Is there anything that you remember?" Peggy asked.

"Nothing, that's just it. I don't remember anything. There are just those three days where we can't remember a single thing that happened."

Peggy gave her a long look, eyes filled with a sadness Aspen couldn't quite understand. "I named my daughter after a brave girl who helped me save a life during the war."

"Oh."

"She had a fiery determination and an incredible ability," Peggy continued. Aspen felt Peggy's hand gently take her wrist, touching the cuff. "She just needed to believe in herself," she said.

"What are you saying?" she asked.

"I think you know," Peggy replied softly. "Impossible as it seems, I think you know."

Aspen didn't know what to say to that, didn't know exactly what Peggy was telling her because what she _thought_ she might be telling her was impossible. So she smiled as they fell silent, watching the birds and enjoying the feel of the sun. Finally Steve came to find her, and it was time to go. Aspen gave Peggy a long hug and promised to visit her as soon as she moved to DC. She moved aside to let Steve and Peggy say goodbye, waiting by the gate. She could see the sadness in the slope of Steve's shoulders as he said goodbye. He kissed Peggy on the cheek and hugged her once more before joining Aspen. As the cab carried them away from the beautiful house and away from Peggy, Aspen felt a wave of nostalgia. She wasn't sure if it was her own or Steve's. She reached across the seat to take Steve's hand. He squeezed hers though he kept his eyes on the window.

The past had a way of creeping up on them, especially for Steve, but seeing Peggy had been a reminder to both of them that the past could turn into the future as well. What had happened before didn't have to be an end. Maybe they'd never know what had happened in those missing days, but it didn't seem to matter much anymore. Aspen couldn't dwell on the past when she had her future ahead of her. For once it looked bright as if the sun had finally pushed its way through to chase away the storm clouds. Maybe she still had questions and doubts, but for now she wanted to be a fiery, determined girl who saved lives. She had to live up to her name after all.


	19. Epilogue

**Author's Note: **Here we are, finally at the end! It was a slow start, but once I got into writing, it went pretty smoothly. When I started this story I really had no direction, I just wanted to write some one shots, but then I hatched my scheme. I hope you enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading! I had a lot of fun working with this plot line and writing the one shots. If you're still working on reading my stories in order, _A Game of Winter_ is next! If you've already read that then expect _A Game of Heroes_ within the next few weeks!

* * *

><p><strong>Epilogue<strong>

**November 15, 2012**

Steve and Aspen were back to missions after they returned home. None of their missions harbored any unpleasant surprises like their mission in Germany, however, and he was grateful for that. They were working better than ever as a team, and it seemed as if Aspen was trying to prove she didn't need her abilities to be a good agent. Steve could have told her that, but he knew that Doctor Rinehart had tried to get in touch with her several times after the 'incident' in her office. Aspen had ignored her and kept busy, cuff firmly clasped around her wrist. Steve wasn't sure ignoring the issue was the best way to deal with it, but he respected Aspen's choice. Her request to stop her if she ever lost control ran through his head from time to time. It wasn't about stopping her though; it was about protecting her, and he swore to do that.

It was several months after their mission in Germany when Steve received a text message that brought it all back. It was from an unknown number and the message read: _Steve, Strucker has a device that has the potential to crush people with powers. He has the ability to take away your strength and your girlfriend's abilities. I've managed to track him over the last few decades, and he's in Europe. I can't pin him down though – he has networks everywhere. I've waited years to send this message to you. You won't remember me, but you can trust me. I was once SHIELD before Strucker destroyed my life. Don't ever underestimate him. Best of luck,_

_-Nina_

The name sounded vaguely familiar, but Steve couldn't place it. Whatever had happened in those three days, whatever he couldn't remember, Strucker was behind it. Strucker knew just what had happened, and he wasn't done playing with them. Steve tucked his phone away. Right now he had things to worry about other than Strucker. He had a job to do.

"Ready, partner?" Aspen asked, catching up to him. She was dressed in her SHIELD gear, dart guns resting on her hips.

Steve adjusted the shield on his back before nodding. "Ready."


End file.
